Ending gender-based stereotypes

According to international averages, the employment rate of women in the mining industry does not exceed 10 percent. However, despite this low rate, recently, women have proven that they can work just as well as men in this industry.

The protagonist of our story is Narangerel Battushig. Born and raised in Bulgan soum of Umnugovi Province, Narangerel lives in the Khanbogd soum and contributes to one of the largest projects of the century in Mongolia as a proud operator of the Komatsu 930, a giant mining vessel which she moves with her fingertip.

05.00 AM. I am awoken by my phone alarm. I am to interview someone that day.

The room is dark except for the dim glow of the breaking dawn. However, the workers in the dorm are already up and about, buzzing with activity. The morning here starts with the sound of running water from the shower. Ladies run around in towels, getting ready and dressed …

06.05 AM. I look at the crowd of orange clad workers about to start their shifts. They sit eating at the dining tables in the hall. A small queue has started to form in the pickup area.

06.40 AM. Ready to start working after a meal, we arrive at the open pit mining site after traveling approximately 10 minutes via the employee shuttle.

07.00 AM. The workday usually begins after a morning exercise. Today, following the exercise, the supervisor sends the operators of the Komatsu 930 off to work. He gives them a briefing on yesterday’s work performance and instructions on specific areas for improvement. Operators hop inside the cabin of the Komatsu 930 and speed off, dust kicking in the air. Once the vessel starts, it is advised that it remain constantly in motion as much as possible -- not stopping even for one minute. Shift exchanges must be quick. Except for maintenance checkups, the engine has not been turned off for six years.

07.40 AM. Narangerel and I are together in the cabin. Though the Komatsu 930 is probably more than twice the size of an SUV and looks like a lumbering giant, it can go as fast as any car. I joke, “It’s much faster than it looks.” Narangerel replies, “What are you saying? Our mine says drive a minimum 50 km/hr on the road. Driving slower than that decreases productivity. Speeding on the straight road is also much faster than driving in the city”.

We arrive at the lowest point of the pit. Here, we are to load ore. As we stand beneath the loader’s bucket, we have some time to chat. When I ask why she wanted to drive the Komatsu 930, she says, “It was always my dream to become a heavy truck operator. I was working in the Oyu Tolgoi LLC warehouse before coming here. One day, the human resource department called one of my co-workers offering the job. ‘Our work schedules here are changing to four days of work and four days of rest. If you want, you can get transferred to open-pit mining and get trained to operate the Komatsu 930.’ People are usually a little hesitant to change jobs. He was also saying, ‘They’re telling me to go to open pit too. What should I do?’ I told him, ‘What’s there to worry about? Go. It’ll be cool.’ And I was delighted as if I were the one who was becoming the operator. I left secretly hoping someone would also offer the position to me. But nobody called me. After a couple of days, I called the human resource specialist. Didn’t have the courage to say, ‘I want to become an operator’ outright. But, with a carefully modulated voice, I said, ‘I am a resident of Khanbogd currently working 14 day shifts at the warehouse. Do you have any positions available for the four day shifts?’ They replied, ‘There is nothing available at this moment, but if you’re interested, we’ll look into it and see what we can do.’ After few days, they called back with good news. They said, ‘We can reduce your shift. However, it’s not possible to have a reduced shift and work in the warehouse. You will need to transfer to a different department.’ When I asked, ‘Where will you put me?’ the human resource specialist faltered for a moment, then replied, ‘What if you became an operator?’ Of course, I agreed immediately.”

“I became a leading miner and was the best employee of the company while I was working in the warehouse. This was partially because before coming to the warehouse, I was a welder. The work at the warehouse was comparatively easy. It was typical ‘men’s work’ such as driving a fork lifter, loading, unloading, and transporting the stocks. There was nothing I could not do. Because of my skills, when I was about to transfer to open pit mining, the warehouse director tried to convince me not to leave. He told me, ‘Why the sudden change? Is there anything you’re unhappy with here?’ I thought to myself, ‘It might actually not be necessary to change. I’m fine. And I don’t want to disappoint him like this.’ I left his office saying, ‘I will stay’. But then the realization that an opportunity like this would never come my way again gripped me. I ran back. I entered the director’s office and said, ‘I really want to be an operator.’ The director replied, ‘Did you think this through? Heavy machinery is challenging. It’s not the same as just driving on a gravel road.’ I said, ‘There are many female operators like me doing this. I’ll learn.’ And I walked out.”

She continued, “I am really interested in vehicles and am the kind of a person who picks up driving techniques quickly. I used to ride a motorcycle back home when I was young, for example. When I was first learning, the trainer did not have to see me for long before I began driving by myself. I was pregnant when I was pursuing the job of an operator. In the beginning, I didn’t know that, however. I found out during the transfer, but I concealed it. I was scared to be told that a pregnant woman cannot operate heavy trucks. I didn’t tell anyone until my belly got bigger. Sometimes I almost forgot that I was pregnant, as I dedicated everything to work and dedicated all my time to learning how to drive the vehicle until I knew it like the back of my hand.”

“In the end, I didn’t have any difficulty during the pregnancy,” we received notification that 302 tons of ore had been loaded onto the dump bed, and we took off.

We then go to unload the ores in the crusher station. We are in a giant vehicle -- 600 tons total now from the ore that had just been added -- and are whizzing along to a spot 1,050 meters below the earth’s surface. This is Narangerel’s daily life. When asked how she first felt driving this mammoth down the steep road by herself, she answers, “During the day, it was alright. However, it was very rainy on my first night shift. The words of the warehouse director hit me strong when I was driving alone through the darkness and heavy rain on the steep road, and I thought, ‘Not the job I imagined. I thought I’d always be in broad daylight and speeding on a straight road without obstruction.’ But I was neither frightened nor discouraged. As time went on, I adapted to my job, gained experience, even fell in love with it. It’s also delightful to drive while singing along to my favorite songs in the cabin. Also, when I talk about speeding up this giant, people ask ‘Can this giant vehicle speed?’ It looks so heavy that they assume it must be lumbering, almost frozen in place. It’s not like that all. Recently, our mine conducted a pilot test to see how fast it could drive. 65 kilometers per hour on a straight road. Obviously it can speed.”

11.00 AM. Lunchtime has begun. We have few more minutes to chat before she needs to focus. She starts sharing more information about personal life. She reminisces that her grandparents had a daughter and another adopted daughter. Narangerel was born from their adopted daughter shortly after the unfortunate passing of their biological daughter. She grew up as their companion. Her neighboring households used to call her “Ema” which means “spoiled kid”. She could not enroll in university since tuition was too expensive for a poor herding family. Moreover, it was emotionally difficult for her to leave her elderly grandmother behind.

Regarding her first job at Oyu Tolgoi, she was first hired as a part-time kitchen assistant for Ivanhoe Mines. The first day of work was February 20, 2005. However, on March 25, she was promoted to full-time employee and signed an employment contract. Even though she says she grew up coddled, she believes she is nimble-fingered. Two months later, they said, “She is a very adroit lady. We’ll make you an apprentice of a chef specializing in foreign dishes.”

“At first, Ivanhoe Mines used to manage all of the services by itself. However, they started outsourcing and hiring contractors as the project grew greater. I became a welder after the catering service had been assigned to a contractor company. Expecting not much use out of it, the welding certificate from the training course that I participated in just because it was free, made me the first female welder at Oyu Tolgoi,” she said. It was a very adventurous story. She tried to get laid off after hearing that unemployment compensation will be given if laid off.

“It was a tense moment that outsourced company was hired in the kitchen, therefore, employees were going to be assigned here and there in order to retain them and the rest is left to be laid off. I was not called yet though, they assigned people everywhere. I have been working in the kitchen training the new workers when the outsourced company arrive. But the outsourced company offered me a job as a head chef with a promise of a high salary. It means they wanted to hire someone who was working as a chef’s assistant as a head chef.”

“Our company still has not called me yet. Some of my colleagues were assigned to different departments and the rest were laid off. It was almost only me who was left. One day they called. The call was to lay me off.”

“I was young, didn’t have the faintest idea about life, and I did not care much and said: ‘I already have a job offer’. And I still managed to think about if they would give me compensation like others who were laid off. Meanwhile, the company that wanted to hire me asked, ‘Take the medical tests required to become a chef and come’, and the result of the test showed I was pregnant. I visited the regional office in the province center to meet the human resource specialist and explained, ‘I would like to get my statement of dismissal, complete the exiting checklist, and collect my documents. I found out I’m pregnant and I cannot go back and forth repeatedly.’ Then I was informed, ‘If you are pregnant, you cannot be laid off.’ Then I said, ‘No, I want to be fired. I have a high salary job waiting’. It was during the pregnancy period when you get tired and exhausted, all I could think about was getting the compensation money and rest for a few days.”

“But the office booked me a plane ticket and said, ‘The law must be obeyed. Anyways, go to the city and take the test in the contracted hospital.’ The test completed in the city proved the pregnancy. So the plan to get fired, receive compensation and get rest was ruined. The human resource manager Nadya in the headquarters asked, ‘We wont fire a pregnant woman. What job can you perform? Did you complete any vocational training?’ I said I have a certificate in welding. However, I can barely weld, haven’t even touched a welding hammer since completing the 45-day training a few years ago. She told me, ‘Send me your certificate as soon as you go back and work as a welder,’ then made several calls to people in mining and entrusted me to those people. Thus, I fell in love with the job that I never thought to do by following the expert welders of our mine. Eventually, I started to fight over the welding tasks with the other men. As I was pregnant, the men tried to excuse me out of tasks as much as possible, and telling me, ‘You just stay there’. But I would say, ‘I am fine” and work alongside them. Oyu Tolgoi is a generous place which chooses to train and educate the employee over firing or letting them go because of not having a profession or degree. The majority of the people who are working here were trained to be employed,” she says.

The lunch break was over in the midst of our conversation. This time we were not allowed to go together. Because we will go down through the same route as the one for ore transport, which will take a whole day. This would have not been entertaining. Thus, we left with a promise to meet after work. The lady galloped by in her truck.

12.00 PM. Waiting for Narangerel to finish her shift provided us the opportunity to familiarize with the progress of the Oyu Tolgoi project and mining operations. There are a number of things intriguing to see and worth reporting such as an ore processing factory and underground mining, which is considered the biggest development of the century.

However, it was not the purpose of our assignment to report on those, we have skipped to emphasize the men in pink shirts. The color of Oyu Tolgoi is orange, and it is embodied from the company logo to the employee uniform, everything that represents the company characteristic. People dressed in orange is all over the place and the men dressed in pink shirt encountering here and there stands out. Assuming the color of the uniform differs by the level of their position or rank, I thought it was strange that men were dressed in pink shirts.

However, it has a different meaning. The Association of Women in Mining and Natural Resource Industry was established in 2016 with a purpose to support the women in the mining industry and their career. A total of 180 employees of 20 companies operating at Oyu Tolgoi mine are united in this association. Men express their respect and support for the acceptance of women’s responsibilities and participation in the mining industry by wearing pink colored shirts. It is a positive and pleasant attitude, isn’t it? Upon learning the reason behind it, men dressed in the pink shirt started looking “sweet”.

07.00 PM. Narangerel’s shift is over. When asked, “Are you tired?” she replied, “No. I don’t like to say I’m feeling lazy or getting tired. It feels odd to hear those too. Sometimes I offend people accidentally by commenting, ‘Isn’t it your responsibility and you are young’, upon hearing those kinds of things, especially while on duty and during the work hours. If you are here to work, you have to fulfill your obligations. Our job has a huge responsibility and requires high alertness; therefore, it is advised to switch your shift to the next person, if too tired.”

“But I never took an absence from work even when I was pregnant. Sitting back to avoid work is not a habit young person should have. I think a person should keep their worklife balance and be ready to fulfill their allotted obligations.”

“It is the upbringing of my grandparents. I also don’t like being a pout, hanging your head and shoulders. This habit is also taught by my grandparents. My grandfather lifts my head with his finger saying, ‘Why are you hanging your head like you are suffering from pain?’ when he sees me looking low and feeling blue. They always told me to raise my head and look up. Because I was taught like this, people describe me as someone who walks with chin up and power posture,” she said.

...Men express their respect and support for the acceptance of women’s responsibilities and participation in the mining industry by wearing pink colored shirts...