Posted by Oldgirl:
Quote:quote:the point made many years ago was always that it was not reasonable to use a volunteer (unpaid, albeit not free) in place of a paid member of staff
The reality of 'volunteering' as practiced in the UK from the late 1970s up to around 1990 was that the volunteers
were paid, and in many cases made their living principally by archaeological volunteering. However, their pay came in the form of a flat-rate 'subsistence allowance', usually paid in cash, with no tax, NI etc. This meant that the units (all public bodies or charities at the time) could effectively
employ staff, but at greatly reduced cost, while the staff themselves had no employment rights. Sometimes even the supervisors were 'volunteers', with a higher rate of subsistance payment.
A lot of the objection to using volunteers now is due to the fear of reintroducing that sort of exploitative system. Another objection is that it can lead to unfair competition in a competitive tendering situation (not an issue in the old days). Finally, units have far less control of volunteers than employees.
However, I think the type of volunteer we are talking about today is a very different creature. I can't see an objection in principle to allowing volunteers to participate in commercial archaeology, as long as:
- they are completely unpaid
- they are a small proportion of the field team
- they have a defined role
- their involvement is planned for from the pre-tender stage, with a mechanism to prevent unfair competition.
This would apply equally to diggers and metal-detectorists. However, both would have to recognise that anything they find belongs to the project - no removal of finds for sale/reward, no separate agreements with the landowner.
My organisation has in the past used metal-detectors on site (sometimes this is a curator's requirement), but generally it is used by one of our own staff, or else we
employ a metal-detectorist; we haven't used metal detectorists as volunteers.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished
