...these are the only words I can find to describe the behaviour of a unit manager and IFA member notorious for being unable to keep staff. Said individual hires a young graduate fresh from university and then when work dries up tells them they are ?stood down,? which means they are on unpaid leave and unable to work for anyone else. When said person sees through this fantasy and tries to sign on as unemployed, the employment office ring the unit up and said manager tells them the person concerned still works for him, putting paid to their claim for benefit. A happy ending though when said person gets a job elsewhere leaving unit manager decidedly unhappy and understaffed. Can you believe the audacity? Any similar tales?

Hey guys - would love some feedback on an idea we had.
We found an amazing company that makes handmade, beautifully crafted leather holsters - built for WHS 4" trowels.
Are you interested in this as a product?
Would you buy one as part of a package with a trowel?
What would be a reasonable price to pay?
Any feedback would be really appreciated.

Thanks

Ian

http://www.getatrowel.co.uk - trowels for archaeological excavators

Here's an interesting story from the CBA website. It's highlights a couple of problems my company encounters often. That for watching briefs of uncertain duration it is difficult to estimate post ex costs, and that developers are quite often happy to pay for the site work, but then do everything to avoid paying for a proper report. One wonders why the planning condition was signed off without it.

Site owner told to pay archaeologist ?8,470
Thursday March 9th 2006
The site on which the Browne Street Bar is built, and its archaeological significance, was at the centre of a civil case in Carlow Circuit Court.
An old quarry that supplied the stone that was used to build Carlow and an ancient ditch that bordered the town were found on the corner of Browne Street and College Street.
The court heard that the owner of the site, Peter McCormack, 50 Tullow Street, Carlow, was granted planning permission to build on it in May, 2003, on the condition that he employed an archaelogist to supervise, record and report on the findings of an excavation dig.
Mr. McCormack was the defendant in the case, brought against him by consultant archaeologist, Mr. Patrick Neary, 24 Talbot's Inch, Kilkenny. He sued Mr. McCormack for the cost of writing a detailed and mandatory report on the dig's findings to the sum of ?8,470.
In his evidence in court, Mr. Neary said that both men agreed that his fee should be ?350 per day on the site and that he was paid on a weekly basis, promptly, by Mr. McCormack. However, when the dig was completed, and Mr. Neary wrote up the report, Mr. McCormack refused to pay the cost incurred in writing it up. Mr. Neary also said that the excavation was particularly difficult because it was so deep and that he used photographs to record his findings for health and safety reasons. Using photographs also meant that he wouldn't delay the progress of the site unduly.
He added that, in writing up the report, he had to sort through over 1,000 photographs and that his findings had to be re-interpreted for a surveyor. It took him 20 days to complete the report.
Judge Michael O'Shea heard that when the report was almost completed, Mr. Neary rang Mr. McCormack to tell him it was almost ready, but that Mr. McCormack refused to pay him. Mr. Neary said that he wouldn't give him the document until it was paid for.
Counsel for the defence, Elaine Morgan, BL, put it to Mr. Neary that archaeologists usually get paid a daily site allowance and that this fee would cover the cost of any reports. Mr. Neary refuted this, saying that this was 'never the case.'
Peter McCormack gave evidence, saying that he was a Chartered Accountant and Auditor. He said that he thought that the ?350 daily site fee included the cost of writing up the report. He also said that he was surprised when Mr. Neary rang him to tell him that the report was almost completed and that it cost 'in excess of ?5,000.' He said that Mr. Neary hadn't mentioned the additional cost of writing the report previously in their business transaction.
A civil engineer, Pat Buckley, gave evidence for the defence, saying that developers would usually get quotations in advance of a job so that they could budget the costs. However, he said that it would be difficult for an archaeologist to give an advanced quotation, given that they wouldn't yet know the extent of the project. He added that he didn't have direct experience of archaeologists being paid daily site fees.
Finding in favour of the plaintiff, Judge Michael O'Shea said that Peter McCormack seemed like a 'decent' man, but that the archaeological report was 'extremely important' and that it was a mandatory part of the project. He also said that Mr. Neary should be paid for work done under services rendered and ordered Mr. McCormack to pay the cost of the report, which was ?8,470.
? Carlow Peoplehttp://www.unison.ie/carlow_people/ & http://www.unison.ie/

This is a far from complete first draft for my analysis for improving pay and conditions
1. All archaeologists are paid too little.
2. APPAG has made recommendations about what we should be paid by comparison with ?field surveyor?
3. A back of the paper envelope exercise suggests that minima of the IFA grades should be increase by
PIFA 4% to average graduate wage
AIFA ? 26% to national average
MIFA ? 49% to Field surveyor wage
These are starting points for bands of pay, and I feel that pay within the bands should reflect experience. It is also important that the conditions and benefits of employment are equivalent in different organisations
4. An organisation unilaterally paying this to its staff would price itself out from winning future contracts and would be in difficulty with the costs of projects in its books.
5. For archaeological organisations to increase wages significantly above inflation without a detrimental commercial knock on effect they will have to work together as a group representing most if not all archaeological employers.
6. Wages could only be increased over a period of time with increments above the average annual wage increase.
7. A possible mechanism is the RAO scheme. At the moment it includes 52 organisations, with several being assessed and a number ?filling in the forms?. Membership of the scheme is voluntary so members have to be certain of benefits of being in the scheme outweighing the extra costs of imposing higher levels of regulation on themselves compared to the majority of the competitors.
8. Hence only small increases can be asked of RAOs at present, constrained by what is seen as commercially viable.
9. An increase in the numbers of RAOs could speed up this process, as could an increase in IFA membership which would increase the voice the IFA has in lobbying different stakeholders, and voices within organisations to become an RAO.
10. However the IFA is a professional organisation representing all levels of the profession. Some would question if it is appropriate for the IFA to act as a trade union for only one section of its constituents (all though everyone will ultimately benefit from increased pay).
11. Strong well-supported unions would speed up the process of increasing wages across the board. At the moment there are few archaeologists in unions, and those that are represented by several different unions (Prospect, Unison, AUT etc.). Therefore national pay bargaining cannot proceed very quickly. However at a local unit level the potential usefulness of union membership and an elected unit union rep is quite strong, as I have suggested elsewhere. Higher union membership will speed up bringing about higher pay .

However the people paying for archaeologists (Developers, national and local government) also have to be persuaded to cover the increased costs. They need to be shown that archaeology is a serious profession. They have to be persuaded that archaeology has real value. They have to be persuaded that the huge number of skills required of any archaeologist are high and varied, and so we should be remunerated accordingly. I feel that that is best done through a strong professional association. I think that one of the outcomes of the training initiatives highlighted elsewhere is to demonstrate the high levels of skills we all require.

I have just found out that the diggers reunited site is out of order, so if anyone is looking for anyone then why not do it here? Bet you this gets reeaalllly interesting after a few notes....stories of who did what and to whom etc...

Does anyone know if the RCHME publications are available online?

Rightyho-
A couple of us have offered this one so here we go.Write to your MPs and let us have their responses.Pity the poor sod who gets mine.......

..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)

I have noticed a few threads elsewhere commenting on the Oasis database and the grey literature from commercial archaeology that it is accumulating for public domain

[url] http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/library/greylit/


I was just wondering what opinions people had about this service. Personally i think the database form is too detailed (you need quite a lot of information to hand to fill it in) but on the whole i think its a great idea. My only concern is that out of the many people that will find the reports informative for their own pleasure and/or research there will be the few that will use the information for personal gain (i.e night hawks). There is no way of policing who is viewing the material and to what end. If i had sites that i felt were in danger of being damaged i would be reluctant to provide information about them on the internet. Obvuiously the information can still be obtained from the SMR's but this requires slightly more effort than clicking a button on a mouse!

Is it just me or are IFA membership fees rather high for the majority of archaeologists? Once all the dosh has come out of the account for silly things such as living there aint a lot left to throw around. Specially for an organisiation that talks the talk but can't walk the walk.[?]

Have been to Berlin a few times recently and wondered if a British digger was to relocate out there, what is the digging scene like?