11th April 2006, 01:11 PM
Agencies (eg Archpeople) fulfil a completely different role to BAJR. BAJR is a noticeboard for employers to advertise vacancies for staff that THEY wish to employ, like the sits vac columns in a newspaper. BAJR has no contractual relationship with employees or potential employees. BAJR also runs the converse, a noticeboard for CV's for people seeking work, like the sits wanted column in a newspaper.
An agency has contractual relationships with its clients and its employees. It employs the staff, unlike BAJR. It enables employers to obtain staff for fixed and renewable periods (sometimes very lengthy) very easily, at short notice if need be, and to bring that to a close. What is so very objectionable about wishing to avoid reading dozens of CV's for a limited number of staff for a short fixed term contract?
The rates will be fixed by the agency. If employees don't like them they don't sign up, same goes for employers. Care should be taken when comparing agency work in different fields, they operate slightly differently. Admin/secretarial is different from manual, and both are different from professional/technical. In the latter agency staff are invariably better paid per hour than permanent staff but of course don't have the security and so on. Until recently they didn't get sick or holiday pay, but there are tax advantages. There are other pros and cons - different things suit different people.
I really don't understand all this navel gazing and soul searching. Agency work is commonplace in other professions and has been so for years, archaeology is not inventing a wheel here.
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.
An agency has contractual relationships with its clients and its employees. It employs the staff, unlike BAJR. It enables employers to obtain staff for fixed and renewable periods (sometimes very lengthy) very easily, at short notice if need be, and to bring that to a close. What is so very objectionable about wishing to avoid reading dozens of CV's for a limited number of staff for a short fixed term contract?
The rates will be fixed by the agency. If employees don't like them they don't sign up, same goes for employers. Care should be taken when comparing agency work in different fields, they operate slightly differently. Admin/secretarial is different from manual, and both are different from professional/technical. In the latter agency staff are invariably better paid per hour than permanent staff but of course don't have the security and so on. Until recently they didn't get sick or holiday pay, but there are tax advantages. There are other pros and cons - different things suit different people.
I really don't understand all this navel gazing and soul searching. Agency work is commonplace in other professions and has been so for years, archaeology is not inventing a wheel here.
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.