5th June 2011, 08:18 PM
I think we may be talking about two different things. The MoLA advert is for site technicians, who would be employed by the company, albeit on a 'training' wage, the Southport thing seems to be about public access and allowing local people the opportunity to work on professional sites alongside commercial contractors. In the site tech situation, I don't know what would happen after they've been there for a while and gained a reasonable set of skills, though I'd like to think that having demonstrated that they can do the job, they'd be promoted to the usual diggers salary and not chucked out to bring in another batch of trainees! (hollow laugh).
In terms of the Southport vision of more access for volunteers to work on commercial site, I'd expect this to operate in a different way. The volunteers aren't actually working for the company, they're simply taking part in archaeology that's going on in their area by getting involved in a voluntary basis. I don't think the contractor would be paying them to be there, as then they wouldn't be volunteers, they'd be employees. I also don't think most would be undertaking this type of voluntary work with the expectation of securing a job at the end of it. Rather, I think most would come along for a day or two, or a couple of hours a week, to learn what they can about a subject that they're interested in. I'd expect any project design including the use of volunteers to also include the provision for a suitable ratio of professionals on site, both to instruct and monitor the volunteers, and to ensure that the actual excavation progresses. The volunteers would therefore not be on site instead of professional archaeologists, but in addition to them. There'd need to be a sufficient number professional staff there to ensure that they had time to help the volunteers and weren't expected to run about madly doing both excavation and education.(hollow laugh again).
I don't think either of these ideas are bad in and of themselves, but I can see that both have the potential to be damaging to professional wages and employment prospects if commercial contractors were minded to implement them in a way designed to lower staff levels or costs. Given the realities of commercial competition, it's likely that someone would seek to gain advantage by doing this, and once one company does it, others are almost certain to follow.
In terms of the Southport vision of more access for volunteers to work on commercial site, I'd expect this to operate in a different way. The volunteers aren't actually working for the company, they're simply taking part in archaeology that's going on in their area by getting involved in a voluntary basis. I don't think the contractor would be paying them to be there, as then they wouldn't be volunteers, they'd be employees. I also don't think most would be undertaking this type of voluntary work with the expectation of securing a job at the end of it. Rather, I think most would come along for a day or two, or a couple of hours a week, to learn what they can about a subject that they're interested in. I'd expect any project design including the use of volunteers to also include the provision for a suitable ratio of professionals on site, both to instruct and monitor the volunteers, and to ensure that the actual excavation progresses. The volunteers would therefore not be on site instead of professional archaeologists, but in addition to them. There'd need to be a sufficient number professional staff there to ensure that they had time to help the volunteers and weren't expected to run about madly doing both excavation and education.(hollow laugh again).
I don't think either of these ideas are bad in and of themselves, but I can see that both have the potential to be damaging to professional wages and employment prospects if commercial contractors were minded to implement them in a way designed to lower staff levels or costs. Given the realities of commercial competition, it's likely that someone would seek to gain advantage by doing this, and once one company does it, others are almost certain to follow.
You know Marcus. He once got lost in his own museum