Fortescue, the Australian iron ore producer ranked fourth globally by output, was the target of a class action lawsuit filed on Thursday alleging widespread sexual harassment of women at its remote mine sites. The complaint was brought by law firm JGA Saddler, which is the same firm that initiated comparable class actions against Rio Tinto and BHP in late 2024. Those earlier suits remain active in the courts.
The law firm cited extensive testimony from women who have worked at Fortescue sites. The written submission accompanying the suit included 45 testimonials describing incidents experienced on-site. One of those accounts read: "I came home one night to find a random man in my room."
Paris Hamrey, a litigator at JGA Saddler, said in a statement that women repeatedly tell the firm they do not feel safe at Fortescue locations. Hamrey noted multiple specific complaints: underwear being stolen from public laundries, women avoiding the gym because men have touched them inappropriately or followed them back to their rooms, and reports of retaliation when incidents are raised. "When women do report incidents, they’re being demoted, dismissed, silenced or blacklisted from the industry altogether," Hamrey said.
The complaint comes against a backdrop of industry scrutiny. In 2022, the Western Australian state government recommended broad reforms after documenting what it described as horrifying conduct and concluding that sexual harassment and assault were pervasive within the fly-in, fly-out - or FIFO - segment of mining operations. FIFO arrangements are common across Australia’s remote iron ore sites, where workers regularly travel long distances to temporary accommodation at mine camps.
Women currently represent 22% of the mining workforce, according to figures cited in the filings, a rise from approximately 18% at the start of the decade. That increase in female participation has coincided with continued reporting of workplace misconduct across major miners.
Fortescue’s most recent safety report records that the company notified Western Australia’s mines safety regulator of 22 cases of sexual harassment during the 2025 financial year, a 27% decrease from the previous year. Among the three large iron ore producers named in related suits, Fortescue was the only one to report a decline in reported incidents for that period.
By contrast, Rio Tinto’s internal care hub, which assists employees reporting a range of harmful workplace behaviour including harassment, recorded 702 incidents in its latest annual report - a 24% increase from the prior year. BHP reported 429 incidents of sexual harassment in 2025, a 3% rise year-on-year, and stated in its annual report that 100 individuals found responsible were either dismissed or resigned.
As the legal process advances, the litigation targets both corporate practices and the effectiveness of internal reporting and remediation systems across the sector. The filings submitted by JGA Saddler focus on individual testimonies and the pattern of outcomes women say they face when raising complaints, while company reports provide numerical context for incident trends across the largest firms in the industry.