Workers at coal mine in New South Wales have been forced into isolation just days out from Christmas after a COVID-19 cluster was confirmed at the underground operation.
Seventeen workers at South32's Appin Colliery, south-west of Sydney, have tested positive for the virus.
Mining and Energy Union south-west district secretary Andy Davey said a worker returned a positive rapid antigen test when he arrived for an afternoon shift last Thursday.
"Appin conducts the test onsite prior to employees going to work and there were some anomalies come back from one particular swab," Mr Davey said.
"He was deemed a close contact with the rest of the crew so they asked some people to go and get tested, and the cases started coming in slowly.
"It's just unfortunate for our members, everybody works closely together in confined spaces, the shower cubicles are open, it's very hard."
Timing 'unfortunate'
For the past 12 months, the company has enforced mandatory mask wearing and staggered shifts to help mitigate outbreaks.
A South32 spokesperson says the company is providing support to staff and is following New South Wales Health directions.
Mr Davey said the timing was unfortunate.
"It's thrown a cat amongst the pigeons," he said.
"There's a lot of worried people out there, from Thursday afternoon there's been phone calls to-ing and fro-ing and people with serious questions.
Protocols in place
Operations at the mine have not been impacted by the outbreak.
"South32 has gone above and beyond with COVID-19 protocols, separating the men into shifts and things like that," Mr Davey said.
"It's definitely contained the cluster."
He said vaccination rates among workers was "very, very high" but measures to mitigate future outbreaks and clusters would have to change as the pandemic continued.
"It's going to be difficult; we are going to have to live with it, which is a shame.
"How we do that will change, daily, weekly, monthly, and that's the hardest part," he said.
