16th November 2005, 07:19 PM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by 27trowels
I was wondering if people might be able to enlighten me on some key questions i have.
I'll try.
Point 1: Why not a single union? Historically, archaeologists joined unions active in their workplace. This meant NALGO for local authority workers (now UNISON) and IPCS (now Prospect) for central government workers. IPCS and IPMS made a push to mop up loose members in the 80s and 90s and I think that APEX (now AMICUS) also tried to attract archaeologists, along with weather forecasters and vicars in the 1990s. My experience is that there have never been enough rich archaeologists to support a single profession trade union.
2. Strikes. There are very, very strict rules on who may strike, where they might strike and what other workers they are striking in favour of. I personally don't think that it worked well for the Fireman or Gate Gourmet workers, but perhaps you read different newspapers to me. It is unlikely that any trade union worried about its sequestrated assets would sanction unilateral strike action across a 'professional' grouping, unless it involved a single employer. Even then, as the miners discovered in 1985 you could be in breach of the law.
3. I can go through a list of MPs who have been useful to archaeologists. Some who seem to put their principles first include Simon Hughes (LibDem, Bermondsey), Mark Fisher (Lab, Stoke) and Tam Dayell (now ex Lab). I will save Mr Host's blushes (and libel suits) by not mentioning those who have blown hot and cold over the years, but the majority of fly-bys have been aspirant Labour types.
4. Some archaeologists have always been badly paid. Some have been paid an average wage. Biggest problem to my mind was that when a large number of County Archaeologists were created (in the Frankenstein sense) in the 1970's. They were stuck on Local Government grade 4. This meant that anyone below them in grade had to be on a lower salary. You can still see the consequences of this in present-day pay grades. There is no other graduate entry grade in Local government where the salary is so low.
5. It is a well known fact that since 'developer funding' began in the late 70's, arcaheology is a very small component <1% of development projects. The way you make huge profits in development is to exploit the weakest link and that happens to be development control of which archaeology is hand in glove. The only way to get more money for archaeology would be if the development control process allowed it to do so (i.e section 106 controls). Central and local governemnt is wise to that scheme however and any such monies which can be raised in this manner are more likely to go towards reducing Council or Income Tax bills rather than supporting archaeology.
Hope that fills in some gaps. I am surised that your Bradford gap year isn't providing the answers to some of these points.