26th January 2013, 09:01 PM
(This post was last modified: 26th January 2013, 09:15 PM by troll.)
I have to admit that a goodly few years ago I railed against the assumption on the part of the IfA that they had the right to unilaterally set minima for professional archaeologists that were lower than Council bin-men. From Sadies` post above (many thanks Sadie by the way!), it seems that a number of units are challenging the right of the IfA to set minima that are so "high". This is utterly absurd and also unacceptable.
If these units have made the erroneous and naive assumption to imagine that we are all stupid enough to believe that field archaeology is far too expensive and overheads are uncomfortably high, then we have a bit of a problem. The overwhelmingly larger bite of the apple is taken by consultancies who routinely add thousands (in some cases tens of thousands) to the actual/real cost of archaeological work. So, are these challengers asking that professional archaeologists take a nose-dive into poverty in order to further increase their profit margins? If that is the game they are playing then a couple of things occur to me...
First and foremost, let`s discuss this on the pages of every newspaper we can find who love a good story about businesses who drive working people into poverty in order to increase their profit margins. Also, and this may be a big ask......there is no reason why the workforce shouldn`t pro-actively (and publicly) boycott the challengers as future employers. Existing employees of the challengers should in my view prepare to institute legal proceedings (breach of contract as a minimum) if and when the desired reduction in salaries are rolled out.
Could it be as simple as this? The challengers are no longer accepted as a part of the IfA as they are challenging some of the fundamental concepts of the Institute simply for fiscal advantage, professionals choose not to work for them which will mean an exodus of the highly skilled and experienced to those employers who do adhere to the IfA minima. Could be interesting......Curatorial archaeologists could theoretically at least, be put in a position where they may not continue to view the challengers in a favourable light and the interpretation of IfA regs and guidelines could actually work against them and by default, may in fact become a fiscal handicap. In a nutshell- the challenging businesses could/should be isolated by the workforce and perhaps technically- expelled from the IfA.
Consultants will in my view be the major winners in this (if the challenge is successful) and I suspect that a significant proportion of the input to this challenge comes from those quarters. The Client has for years been misled as to the actual cost of archaeological work by Consultants. Am I seriously expected to believe that the challengers are pursuing this in the interests of their Clients? Or that they believe that they are aiming to enhance the professional standard of work? Or to make themselves more competitive? Can`t really be that competitive if no-one will work for you and you become shunned by the only professional Institute for archaeology in the country.....:face-huh:
If these units have made the erroneous and naive assumption to imagine that we are all stupid enough to believe that field archaeology is far too expensive and overheads are uncomfortably high, then we have a bit of a problem. The overwhelmingly larger bite of the apple is taken by consultancies who routinely add thousands (in some cases tens of thousands) to the actual/real cost of archaeological work. So, are these challengers asking that professional archaeologists take a nose-dive into poverty in order to further increase their profit margins? If that is the game they are playing then a couple of things occur to me...
First and foremost, let`s discuss this on the pages of every newspaper we can find who love a good story about businesses who drive working people into poverty in order to increase their profit margins. Also, and this may be a big ask......there is no reason why the workforce shouldn`t pro-actively (and publicly) boycott the challengers as future employers. Existing employees of the challengers should in my view prepare to institute legal proceedings (breach of contract as a minimum) if and when the desired reduction in salaries are rolled out.
Could it be as simple as this? The challengers are no longer accepted as a part of the IfA as they are challenging some of the fundamental concepts of the Institute simply for fiscal advantage, professionals choose not to work for them which will mean an exodus of the highly skilled and experienced to those employers who do adhere to the IfA minima. Could be interesting......Curatorial archaeologists could theoretically at least, be put in a position where they may not continue to view the challengers in a favourable light and the interpretation of IfA regs and guidelines could actually work against them and by default, may in fact become a fiscal handicap. In a nutshell- the challenging businesses could/should be isolated by the workforce and perhaps technically- expelled from the IfA.
Consultants will in my view be the major winners in this (if the challenge is successful) and I suspect that a significant proportion of the input to this challenge comes from those quarters. The Client has for years been misled as to the actual cost of archaeological work by Consultants. Am I seriously expected to believe that the challengers are pursuing this in the interests of their Clients? Or that they believe that they are aiming to enhance the professional standard of work? Or to make themselves more competitive? Can`t really be that competitive if no-one will work for you and you become shunned by the only professional Institute for archaeology in the country.....:face-huh: