Last person leaving, turn out the light!

[chiz]

collecting stats is fine, but obviously there's a split between short term contract workers, and actual 'redundancies' of permanent staff. I know of several real (and really stupid) redundancies in London, where there is also a decline in site work. A major SE unit had to lay off nearly all its diggers a while ago, which seems like armageddon, but it was as two large sites both finished at the same time. They also experienced a real drop in enquiries about doing fieldwork at the same time which is more worrying as it indicates a longer term drop in work, rather than the short term ups and downs.

The lack of site adverts in BAJR/IFA indicates a lack of large new sites outside of existing unit capabilities, but units do subcontract from neighbouring units to avoid layoffs, so it doesn't necessarily mean less work, just that its in the same places. Also most units will just phone around to re-recruit staff rather than advertise....

So yes, keeping some kind of tabs on layoffs/redundancies and recruitment would be good, but we need the longer term stats to understand what those figures mean. Charting lay-offs without charting where those diggers go to would always make it seem like the world is ending. It is also winter as well...

[drpeterwardle]

There a number of stages to the current situation:
1. Not recruiting via places like BAJR (which has already happened) and only appointing posts internally
2. Laying people off at the end of a short term contract (a normal process) and other natural wastage (which is happening)
3. Laying off of people who have been employed less than two years (ie people who are not entitled to redundancy pay)
4. Redundancy of long term field staff (This appears to be happening)
5. Redundancy or demotion of project managers
6. Redundancy of project officers (PO will tend to be employed longer because of report writing)
7. Laying off of post X staff
There is quite a cost to making people redundant and I think it naïve to think that a union will somehow get a better deal for people. The best that people can hope for is the stat minimum of redundancy pay and at worst the company going bust because they can’t afford the redundancy payments. What the Unions can do is ensure that the redundancy procedures, particularly, are fair.
I would draw everybody’s attention to the rules for consultation for collective redundancy (20 people or more) which must begin before a decision to make people redundant has actually been made. See http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/employme...13852.html
“What does the consultation process mean in practice?
(a) When should consultation begin?
Consultation with employee representatives must begin in good time and at least 30 or 90 days before the redundancy notices take effect i.e. the day on which employees actually leave their posts (see below). Consultation must begin when the employer is 'proposing' the redundancies. In other words, he should not have come to a definite decision to make employees redundant and the employee representatives should still be able to influence the outcome. Where the employer is proposing to dismiss between 20 and 99 employees, consultation must begin at least 30 days before the redundancy notices take effect. Where the employer is proposing 100 or more redundancies, the consultation must begin at least 90 days before the redundancy notices take effect. Where there are no employee representatives, the employer should begin the process of electing employee representatives as quickly as possible (discussed above).”

Given the current state of play redundancy must be on the cards in every big company so is this kind of consultation exercise being carried out?

There also is a clear issue of what happens when a developer goes bust - who pays for the post X and are companies under an obligation to complete the post X work? Similarly who pays for the costs of the deposition of the archive or even the preparation of the archive?

[trowelfodder]

The job situation with us has gone tits up too. Am out of work at the end of the month when my contracts up, and my boyfriends about to lose his job too - we thought we'd be able to weather out the next 6months and hopefully longer as had a PO job lined up.

Ive just had to pull out of this job as it involved moving and we have a morgage. We thought we'd be able to rent out our flat but theres so many houses that have been bought for buy to rent theres no takers. We cant afford to risk taking a house on as even one month of rent and morgage would cripple us.

And thats the problem with archaeology you dont usually manage to secure a constant enough stream of work to pay into any regular savings account and this is going to be a huge stumbling ground for archaeologists. We have no safety net. And all the talk of redundacy pay is almost irrelevent to the majority of fie;ldstaff as most are on short term contracts and wont qualify anyway.

Am thinking the only way to keep our home is to not live in it so will be looking for away jobs (but pref not in britain for the foreseeable future) - have been taking site assistant jobs for months which is **** but its work - although i do realise that the knock n effects of expierience staff who useually work at PO or supervisor level taking digging job makes things even harder for those starting out. Hopefully there will be an end to this but I dont think we will all come through it.

[BAJR Host]

Thanks Peter for an excellent summary of what is happening...

The question is... Positive things to do!

I am off to the SCAUM meeting on 27th Feb... anything you think I should carry in my notebook?

"I don't have an archaeological imagination.."
Borekickers

[kevin wooldridge]

Obviously companies have to make decisions regarding redundancies based on both current and future prospects of work. Whilst 'knee-jerk' can be good from an accountancy reaction, I think the last downturn showed that companies that cut too far were not in the best position to pick up work when the dribble of a economic recovery began. This especially applied to local government units in the early 90's and I think helped many 'private' undertakings with more flexible and quicker reactions to get a toe-hold in the market. As my old economics teacher might have said: 'Good or bad thing?. Discuss'

Peter's point about the consultation period required before staff can be laid off is a good one and nobody in this day and age should accept a Friday evening message in the pub as adequate notice. My point about involving trade unions wasn't based on getting a better deal (although in some circumstances that can be possible), but on securing your minimum statutory rights.

[drpeterwardle]

The very point of redundancy consultations is to see if mass redundancies can be avoided and this depends upon the circumstances of the companies. I know of one example in the 90s when a redundancy notice was issued and there was suddenly a shortage of people actually in work because everybody was using up their leave entitlement. When this was taken into account the need for redundancies was much reduced.

One difficulty is that the current situation is not like any other down turns and there has been nothing remotely similar since PPG 16 was introduced (apart from the foot and mouth crisis). It is thus difficult to predict what will actually happen and how long will the situation last.

There is a time lag between an enquiry or a quote and a job starting so this acts as an indicator of how much future work will be provided the quote turn into work. Normally you know what percentage of quotes you will win and thus you can predict the about of work you will have on. In the current client this does not apply because prices are unstable and suddenly you can be undercut. Earlier this year I found out how much my rivals were charging for a particular job and to my horror I was much more expensive.

Similarly at times like these one thing that happens is that people may still ask for quotes even if the work is unlikely to go ahead.

The worst situation, however, is when the phone does not ring at all.

The decisions are difficult. While Kevin has a point about being ready for the next upturn but people are only part of the equation. There is no point in having the people without working capital.

So here is the dilemma for BAJRites to consider is it better to employ less people at a higher wage who are fully employed or more people on a lower wage.

As for positive things to do well that would be telling. I have my game plan!

Peter Wardle
(Have to say redundancy was a good thing in my case. Finally I had the time to finish and publish my PhD. The following years were tough until I managed to get my business off the ground - jobs were few and far between for about a period of about 2-3 years. So if I sound cynical I can genuinely say I have been through it)

[BAJR Host]

quote:So here is the dilemma for BAJRites to consider is it better to employ less people at a higher wage who are fully employed or more people on a lower wage.

As for positive things to do well that would be telling. I have my game plan!

is indeed a dilemma... but with real peoples lives... I sadly agree that there will be a change... we have to ensure we come out fitter and better paid at the end!

"I don't have an archaeological imagination.."
Borekickers

[mercenary]

I find myself being in the novel position of completely agreeing with Dr. Pete on this one.:face-huh:

I don't think positivity or Union advice is going to see many of us through this one, it looks likely to be a long "downturn". If for example the recession lasts until early 2010 as the most positive predictions suggest, how many companies can carry staff until then? Post-ex backlogs will only go so far. Worryingly, predictions for a housing resurgence are much further off, perhaps as much as a decade I have read.

I guess there will be contracts to be won during the lean time, but what sort of ratio will this be compared with what we have got used to during the boom years? How fiercely will units compete for these jobs? It was pretty nastily competitive during the boom; how much worse will it get?

A lot of jobs have to be shed, no question. Presumably if there is one tenth of the work then only one tenth of the workforce will survive, no? My question then is how much work is there scheduled for 6 months down the line? The company I work for has none. That's 0%. I sincerely hope other companies have prospects.

[i_love_rocks]

Another related point is what the unit landscape will look like (and thus the employment market?) after this down turn?

Are the larger existing units the ones that are better suited to get through and will they consequently dominate the market afterwards (with new smaller units emerging as the situation improves)? Or are the smaller units more suited to survive ?
Surely larger units will also want to be as economical as possible and may have to shrink in size?

Who will be in the best position to take on jobs when things pick up again? Where will skills be best preserved during the dry times?

What will this do to commercial archaeology in the future?
Will we only have super-units or will the current mosaic of units remain?
Will units that are charitable companies survive better than privately owned ones?

[Hal Dalwood]

drpeterwardle wrote:

quote:There is quite a cost to making people redundant and I think it naïve to think that a union will somehow get a better deal for people.

I do speak from experience as a member of Unison, and I stand by what I said above:

quote:Unions negotiators may not in the event save your job, if the economic case for redundancies is solid, but they can negotiate a better redundancy deal than anyone could on their own.

Union negotiators can do a lot better than the statutory minimum in the context of redundancies of archaeologists. But is everyone's choice whether they join their workplace union or not.

Hal Dalwood

Bad archaeologist, worse husband