9th December 2005, 06:14 PM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by mercenary
The following was posted on Britarch in response to criticism of the IFA. It puts into perspective the situation in the UK rather well.
I am a native Austrian, and worked there for much of my early years in the discipline. In Austria, there is nothing remotely like the IFA, and as such, there is no self-regulation of the discipline whatsoever. One result of this is, as you may remember from some mails on Britarch earlier this year, that one of our colleagues, Markus Koller, was killed on site about a year ago, when the trench he was working in collapsed. This event has had NO consequences whatsoever, as the police investigation ended finding that no one could be held responsible, based, at least mostly, on an expert opinion of one of my colleagues (who shall remain nameless) that general health and safety regulations could not be applied to archaeological excavations, and that no Austrian archaeologist had any idea whatsoever what could have been done to prevent this 'tragic accident' (which of course is as patently wrong as it is outrageous). Other than a conference which will be held next February in Salzburg, where health and safety on excavation will be discussed by, mainly, representatives of various archaeological institutions in Austria, that's it (I will be there and talk about the situation in the UK, btw.). And I fully expect that said conference will produce no tangible results whatsoever, either, as most of the participants will come up with the usual sad argument that health and safety cost more than we can afford, and that there is nothing that could keep a section from collapsing anyway
This would appear to be an outrageous situation. It does however contain an error.
Austria as a full member of the European Union has signed up to virtually identical Health and Safety legislation to that applicable in the UK. Workers in Austria are protected under this legislation in the same way that UK workers are.
Council Directive 89/391/EEC of 12 June 1989 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work
In UK law the employer has a responsibility to make sure a working site is safe. The employees have a duty to act in a safe manner.The death of the archaeologist in Salzburg is to be regretted, but the correspondent is wrong to say that are no measures that could have been taken to protect this worker. The workers involved should not have been in that trench in those conditions. The employer had a duty under both European and Austrian law to ensure a safe working site.
I would hope that Austrian archaeological workers (supported by their trade unions) are seeking serious meetings with their employers to ensure that H&S legislation is being applied. This is not a matter to be raised at the arse-end of a conference, but fundamental to archaeological work across Europe. As UK archaeologists or archaeological companies could/can work anywhere in the EU, a serious breach of H&S conditions in any part of the EU is a concern we should all be sharing.