Jobs jobs jobs !!

[Dinosaur]

Just spent the weekend partying with a guy from a construction firm, and we reached a consensus that across both trades job security = having a driving licence. Getting to the site is common to both. An unskilled building labourer who can go off in the truck to buy a length of pipe or fetch another pallet of bricks from the yard is often far more useful than someone who's been laying bricks for 30 years, and on our end of things there are guys who've been digging forever who work for us but half the time are no use whatsoever, e.g. doing 1-man watching briefs in the middle of nowhere....

[Carrickavoy]

Archaeology has exactly the same employment conditions as any other employment field then.

Not exactly true. The nature of archaeology means that it is dominated by temporary contracts. These precarious working conditions mean that organising labour is very difficult. While there has been a shift in many other workplaces towards temporary contracts, few other industries have a workforce which moves about as much as archaeology. It may be different in the UK? But in Ireland you would more then likely end up shifting from one end of the country to follow work - when there was work. This means it is extremely hard to organise, and difficult to keep an eye on maverick employers.

[Kel]

My comment quoted above was in reply to post #15 immediately preceding it, which discussed the true nature of ostensibly "permanent" employment. The same legislation applies to all employers of "permanent" staff and positions in any industry, and it's subject to the same strategic use and occasional abuse. My comment wasn't intended as an observation on the mobility or organisation of a workforce based on short-term contracts.

However, in this respect archaeology does have a lot in common with other industries like IT. It's just that the wages for that are better, so there's a lot less to complain about with short-term mobile contract work. In my experience, IT has a generally non-activist and non-unionised workforce. The only time I was a member of a union when I worked in IT, was when I was employed by a local authority.

[Carrickavoy]

Haha Sorry Kel. I read from the last to first.

Yep, many of the new employment sectors are riddled with precarious working practices. Madeleine Bunting's book 'Willing Slaves' addresses this very well. It is a good read, really well researched.
http://books.google.ie/books/about/Willi...edir_esc=y

[Wax]

There are many professions where the work force are expected to move around or are employed on short term contracts. However most of them are paid considerably more than archaeologists. The disruption to family life is compensated for by the inflated salaries. I know many people in the IT industry and non are members of a union or would even consider being members as they do not consider themselves as being exploited but rather as having made a life style choice. In reality many of them are exploited but if they raise their heads above the parapet there is a lot to loose.

Archaeologists are exploited because there are very many who are desperate to work in the profession to the extent of being willing to do it for nothing. How you change that I have no idea.

[Kel]

Spot on, Wax. Couldn't agree more with all points.

[kevin wooldridge]

Archaeologists are exploited because there are very many who are desperate to work in the profession to the extent of being willing to do it for nothing. How you change that I have no idea.

Clearly the only way to change that would be to restrict the number of persons able to legitimately work as archaeologists. The only ways of achieving that are through either qualification or licensing or some combination of both. Archaeology as a profession has known this for a good while now and whilst there are some steps towards the ambition (IFA Chartering for example), many members of the profession seem bent on the opposite tack by actually 'deskilling' the job (See Chiz Haywoods various articles recently). I have even seen it suggested that any form of qualification is unhealthy for an archaeologist....somehow mixing in academia gives you ideas way above your station or sklills requirement...!!

Archaeologists are exploited because.......well I think we all know the answer to that!!

[Kel]

Clearly the only way to change that would be to restrict the number of persons able to legitimately work as archaeologists. The only ways of achieving that are through either qualification or licensing or some combination of both

How will that restrict the number of freshly-qualified archaeologists seeking to work in archaeology? Anyone who seriously wants to be an archaeologist, currently gets an undergrad degree (like it or not, that's the de facto entry qualification these days). Anyone who seriously wants to be an archaeologist would therefore go and get whatever new qualification is required. The only way you'll restrict the numbers doing so will be to a) make it prohibitively expensive and out of reach for many, or b) implement a cap on the number permitted to qualify/register per year (illegal, I should imagine).

I think the currently increasing costs of taking a degree, plus the scaling-down/closure of university archaeology departments, are more likely to stem the flow.

[Kel]

... Although thinking about it, the best way to restrict the number of new people entering archaeology, is surely to specify a job requirement which they can't possibly meet. Like asking for two years of commercial experience on employment ads and not offering either this or training.

All of which is of course already in place.

[P Prentice]

Archaeologists are exploited because there are very many who are desperate to work in the profession to the extent of being willing to do it for nothing. How you change that I have no idea.

ergo: archaeologists are exploited because they deserve it. it would be difficult to exploit archaeologists if there was a system in place which provided a structure for training, acreditation and licensing