13th March 2006, 11:09 AM
There are several reasons why a substantial, dramatic increase in the IFAs recommended pay minima is better than the phased increase over ten years suggested by Tile Man.
1) The problem of low pay in field archaeology is scandalous - it needs solving now, not later. In ten years time, when the benefits would be fully felt, many now serving field archaeologists may no longer be in the job! Its difficult enough to attract such people into the IFA already and the promise of jam in ten years will not be enough.
2) From the above discussion, it seems that a dramatic increase could be achieved immediately without damaging the competitiveness of units. If it could be achieved, why not go for it?
3) The big problem with increases phased over the next ten years is that nobody knows what will 'naturally' happen to archaeology wages over that time. It seems likely that there will be some pressure for wages to rise anyway due to fewer archaeology graduates (fees etc). Some of my colleagues claim to be seeing the beginnings of that trend already - Personally,I'm not sure about now, but I am certain that it will happen.
In that context the IFA will be wedded to a scheme of 2% increases above average wages, and may well find that they are - intentionally or not - acting as a brake once again on wage levels. So what at first appeared a progressive scheme ends up as no change in the medium term.
1) The problem of low pay in field archaeology is scandalous - it needs solving now, not later. In ten years time, when the benefits would be fully felt, many now serving field archaeologists may no longer be in the job! Its difficult enough to attract such people into the IFA already and the promise of jam in ten years will not be enough.
2) From the above discussion, it seems that a dramatic increase could be achieved immediately without damaging the competitiveness of units. If it could be achieved, why not go for it?
3) The big problem with increases phased over the next ten years is that nobody knows what will 'naturally' happen to archaeology wages over that time. It seems likely that there will be some pressure for wages to rise anyway due to fewer archaeology graduates (fees etc). Some of my colleagues claim to be seeing the beginnings of that trend already - Personally,I'm not sure about now, but I am certain that it will happen.
In that context the IFA will be wedded to a scheme of 2% increases above average wages, and may well find that they are - intentionally or not - acting as a brake once again on wage levels. So what at first appeared a progressive scheme ends up as no change in the medium term.