28th August 2004, 02:20 PM
At least some discussions are going on. It has to be accepted that for what ever reason attempts to improve pay and conditions over the last 10 years have failed. Everybody agrees pay and conditions should improve -even parliament thinks they should.
The IFA stance was given in a recent posting on Britarch
"Once all archaeological organisations are registered it will be relatively easy to make improvements to pay and conditions across the board, without putting the good ones at a commercial disadvantage."
This is perhaps true but ....will it ever happen?
Prospect has members in 19 archaeological contractors and all I think are RAOs. Prospect are hardly therefore representative will every digger actuially join - they have failed to do so uptill now. In the March digger they call for industry wide pay bargaining and talks with SCAUM and IFA.
David how about producing a league table based upon BAJR ads of who pays what and what the conditions are?
At least employers would known what the going rate in their area is and what the competative disadvantages would be in improving pay.
I have always wondered about the mark up on diggers salaries compared to what a developer is charged for them. There are few overheads for diggers in terms of offices etc, materials etc are separately. If a digger is charged out at ?130 per day for 44 weeks where does the ?14000 difference between the diggers pay and the income go!
Peter Wardle
The IFA stance was given in a recent posting on Britarch
"Once all archaeological organisations are registered it will be relatively easy to make improvements to pay and conditions across the board, without putting the good ones at a commercial disadvantage."
This is perhaps true but ....will it ever happen?
Prospect has members in 19 archaeological contractors and all I think are RAOs. Prospect are hardly therefore representative will every digger actuially join - they have failed to do so uptill now. In the March digger they call for industry wide pay bargaining and talks with SCAUM and IFA.
David how about producing a league table based upon BAJR ads of who pays what and what the conditions are?
At least employers would known what the going rate in their area is and what the competative disadvantages would be in improving pay.
I have always wondered about the mark up on diggers salaries compared to what a developer is charged for them. There are few overheads for diggers in terms of offices etc, materials etc are separately. If a digger is charged out at ?130 per day for 44 weeks where does the ?14000 difference between the diggers pay and the income go!
Peter Wardle