MoLAS Strike

[Unitof1]

who was the strike against?

[Dirty Dave Lincoln]

quote-"but when it needs to be done,it needs to be done"

Thats okay for larger units with large numbers of staff, but for the majority of companies where there can be just a dozen or less people they have no clout whatsoever, and what will count against them even more,is if they are just temporary staff,have no union representation and the unit is outside the IFA.
What good will striking do them? would others come out in sympathy on their behalf? some how I don't think so!

[chiz]

its about the proportion of staff, not the number. MoLAS is a lot smaller than a lot of people think, and has been very small at points over the last few years -six diggers anyone? A lot of Molas staff are on short term contracts, they took the risk and lost the pay, for the principal, and because they had all been mucked around so much and for so long. In small units you actually have a greater percentage of site staff than at say MoLAS, because a larger unit has far more support/admin staff who tend to have better contracts and/or market rate pay. So when it comes to action, they often outweigh the actual archaeologists. Except that at MoLAS outside of a few admin people on London rate admin wages, everyone was on sh*t money etc etc etc.

Don't say it's easy for others, make it possible for yourselves. Organise, educate and argue your case, it aint easy on short contracts, but does that mean you should give up? And when these tales of units victimising staff come out, let us all know and we can all do something about it.

If its something that seriously affects the entire archaeological industry, and needs addressing at the 'nuclear option' level of having a strike, then try and get a strike across the industry, although good luck trying to get that past Dave Allen

[Oxbeast]

I'm not quite sure what your message here is Dirty Dave. Is it 'can't win, so don't try'? Perhaps the temporary staff should join the union. It might improve your assessment of having no clout whatsoever. There are more ways for a union to represent peoples interests that just striking.

[Unitof1]

I think its more about who you are trying to win against. Molas has a lot of odd set up points. Although the archaeologists appeared to strike for their own problems, the rest of the scheduled 2 charity museums were about to strike as well and basically it came out as against government pay restraint in the public sector. What I did not understand about the strike is why it was not directed at the governors of Mol or their appointees. This is what I researched at the time after molas seemed to drift out of a quango set up.

Molas seem to be part of a Group that seems to be a schedule two exempt charity (Charities Act 1993) governed by the Museum of London Acts, 1965 and 1986 with twenty Governors on the Board of the Museum, ten of whom are appointed by the Prime Minister and ten by the City of London (resident voting population about 6000) and as of 6th April 2008 Molas said that they are jointly funded by the Greater London Authority which is headed by Boris Johnson as Mayor of London (who might be a bit mifted he as he does not seem to be doing any important appointing of governors, and the City of London Corporation with a Mr David Lewis as its current Lord Mayor. The new Molas web site still gives the impression that they get funding from the Department for culture, media and sport that they were claiming to be part of until they changed their web site

At least in the small private cowboy unit you can stare the director in the eye, break into the accounts on the computer and mix all the labels up in the archive. My point about Molas was what was/is it. Who were they striking against?

[Dirty Dave Lincoln]

I was using a computer in my local library so didn't have enough time to explain properly.
At the moment commercial archaeology is like this; some units are registered with the IFA and some are not-those that are will (we hope) abide by the guidelines, do a proffessional job, treat their staff decently etc, and when not then there is a complaints procedure which would either see the problems dealt with or the unit suspended untill it is, unless the unit decides to leave and join the ranks of those who want nothing to do with the IFA.
For those units who are outside the Ifa, to whom can employees turn to for help if they are not in a onion? often the only solution is leave the unit and seek work elsewhere or put up with whatever the problem is-which helps no-one.
The only real solution that I can see (that is untill every unit that wants to work in commercial archaeology has to join (for example) the IFA,and agreeing to all prcedures) is for individuals to cover them selves by joining a union (i'm putting my money where my mouth is by applying to join Prspect),at least then people could get help when needed over disputes with their employer-and could go some way to stave off the need for strike.
Lets be honest with ourselves and admit that thanks to competitive tendering our proffession is much divided against itself and that weakens our position for everyone.
Oxbeast "cant win so dont try"? never! to many good people give up and the proffession loses out.