gosh...isn't it getting better all the time.....not

[grindlecat]

so, of the 20 'jobs' posted here, only 2 are actually looking for field capable archaeologists..in Saudi Arabia and Australia...fan-fekn-tastic.....................7 of the other 'jobs' dont actually require archaeological skills...merely data entry or illustration or admin and the rest are the usual pathetic academic attempts to glean money for spurious courses and pointless, directionless 'qualifications'....archaeology in the UK? waste of time.....................
in was right when i posted me angry posts and i'm still right now.archaeology in the UK is deader than Cthulhu.........

[thalinor]

Hey grindle... would contest that archaeological illustration doesnt require knowledge and skills of archaeology. It does. The best archaeological illustrators are those who come from a field archaeology background, who have seen how sites are recorded and what makes a good section drawing (for example).

[grindlecat]

and where are the archaeological illustrators going to learn, if theres no decent fieldwork being done anywhere? or decent trainers training people. Top heavy on chiefs and not enough indians, as i've said many times [so many times....] before.......and the other 'jobs'.....? you are silent about them.
a good illustrator is a good illustrator, whatever he/she is drawinfg/recording..........

[Drunky]

Saudi Arabia jobs 11 months so not a bad contract length

[kevin wooldridge]

Its tough....but there is more work out there than just BAJR adverts.

[BAJR]

This is the thing... some companies are not advetising, as they re just retaking the pople that worked before.

I know of several companies that never advertise, indeed three of them are personal friends... but just employ from people they know.

According to my straw poll of contractors, when I talk with them on the phone, they agree that archaeology is stable, if not getting back to normal.. however, we can't forget that the size of the workforce expanded from 1500 to 7000 (ish) and within that the fieldworkers expanded accordingly, into a non sustainable level of work. So I am sad but not surprised that the total number of digging jobs is now about the same as it was in April 2009 (again... I stress this is based on a guesstimate based on conversations with about 15 companies across the UK) some are expanding... and they are calling up the people that were laid off last year.

What we would like to see with Unionisation is a greater protection for fieldworkers. These are skilled staff, that once lost, don't often return. Indeed I recently described it like an abused spouse... asked back, with the promise they won't get hit this time... honest.. Ive changed.

So things may not be better, but they are not worse. What worries me is stagnation


ps.. I am an illustrator too so watch out ! :face-kiss:

[kevin wooldridge]

When the current downturn started lots of people promised to keep us updated on their progress in either losing work, finding work or keeping work... Is it an apropriate time to ask people how they have managed to keep their heads above water, waving or drowning?

[Dinosaur]

BAJR - how is unionisation going to protect diggers' jobs? If a company hasn't got any fieldwork on then keeping a load of diggers on the books is just going to send the firm into bankruptcy, isn't it? The firms who seem to have kept their heads above water best during the recent downturn do seem to be the ones who hire staff on a single-project basis and were hence best-placed to down-size directly in response to the decline in workload.

Having been employing around 4 times as many diggers as 'normal' for the last 12 months the firm I work for is currently down-sizing to a more sustainable level painlessly just by their contracts running out (actually most of them have had extensions since last year's big jobs have all over-run) - no one seems too upset, they always knew that the time would come to move on and they've all had their fun and made a shed-load of money in the meantime (despite any winges you may have received from certain individuals). Sadly digging is always going to be a boom-bust occupation, unless you can somehow get the construction industry to even-out their activities, or at least do jobs when they said they were going to, to allow for rather better advance workforce planning.

[BAJR]

Of course you are right, that the nature of the beast is a boom and bust system that does call for seasonal increases and in past years even bring people in from all over Europe. (cue grumbling there as well) The Unionisation is not a means to an end, it is part of a general process of dealing with archaeology as a whole. AS a Digger from the 80s into the 90s, I went from job to job and that was fine, though I eventually did run out of cash! In teh end it was job security that wins, knowing you can rely on work (as much as we all can in todays world) and know at teh end of the month, the cheque is in the bank... bliss... I can get a mortgage! or HP on a car... etc...

Unionisation by itself will not be a panacea to all ills... it is however part of the holistic approach to employers, employees, training, talking, skills, negotiations etc... that are so needed for todays market. helping to ensure that workers are not exploited, that contracts are fair, that protection is in place for short term staff, that can be used and abused - sometimes by accident rather than cynical design. I don't normally discuss specific companies openly... AUP etc.. SO all I would say is I don't know why you think any of your employees would whinge about the situation. I would... er... debate the shed loads of money bit.. but again.. thats not for here.

The potential to have some work all year round is not beyond the nouce of an Employer... who values the long term stability of their Workforce, and ensure they are cared for by all the rights that an Employee deserves.... when not working in the field, there is potential (with teh correct training) to re-assign to other duties... to illustration, to finds preparation, to a host of other activities. Its not for everyone... and many just liek the transient nature of it all. well thats fine... but wait till you are in your 30s and have no house, no savings and no future... plus a bad knee. We are facing a shortage of supervisorial and up staff.. why? cos they have been disgarded recently, got jobs to stay alive (that damn food thing) and now find themselves offered the options of come on back... we will pay you crap, and then ditch you when things look bad... OR stay with the job in the Garage, which pays more and is regular employment... the wife/gf/bf/husband is now a lot happier.

The profession just needs to grow up a bit... and one of the legs is unionisation (IMHO)

:face-approve:

[Dinosaur]

Don't get me wrong, I don't actually disagree with most of that :face-approve:

I'm of a vintage to have spent a good few years on the old 'subsistence' system living in a tent 12 months a year and hitching between jobs in the good old pre-Community Programme days, still can't afford the house yet, but at least the next car's cash....know what you mean about the knees but am doing better than most of that vintage, can still just about dig really big holes

One advantage of the 70s/early '80s government-funded circuit (and admittedly there weren't many, but wasn't it fun!!! - yes kids, all the old stories that you dismiss are true) was that there was a predictabilty to the year, with a number of multi-year big summer excavations that you could keep going back to and plan the rest of the year around, not like now where everything is continually up in the air.

The issue with finds-processing etc for temporarily unemployed diggers has been screwed these days by the un-realistic report deadlines set by curators coupled with the equally unrealistic time it often takes to prise reports out of the specialists - I recently had a specialist after 3 years admit that they hadn't got time to do an analysis/publication report! The upshot of that is that finds processing and a lot of other 'post-excavation' actually has to be done during the fieldwork phase on larger projcets in order to get the last of the finds straight off to specialists immediately after the fieldwork is done in order to even attempt to hit the reporting window. Also, specialists seem to demand far more background information than they used to, so with some you virtually have to supply them with a finished site report before they'll even look at the stuff. The upshot is that extra staff have to be employed to do that side of the work, so the diggers never get a look in (they're busy out digging while the 'PX' is being done) and ultimately more people get employed but for less time individually, which exascerbates the overall boom-bust problem!

Funnily enough around here we seem to have almost too many supervisors, but they're expected to fill-in as first-preference diggers etc (which they are anyway, they wouldn't have got offered supervisor jobs otherwise) on other people's jobs if they haven't got any of their own projects up and running currently (same applies to most of the office staff up to senior management, bad backs/legs permitting) - am not saying that's the best way to staff a unit, everyone seems to have their own unique staff structures, but it does provide a lot of flexibility and most of the supervisors would usually rather be digging a hole than having to think in the office anyway. Not as cost-ineffective as it sounds, since one good (supervisor) digger who can also record, PX, contibute to the report etc is more useful than 2 or 3 'average' diggers (cue half the diggers reading this going up in flames.......)