23rd May 2006, 04:28 PM
Here are some facts which come from someone with a foot in both archaeology and museum camps. I am not hiding behind anonymity here, so would appreciate it if you can all please read very carefully before making a judgement or emailing my employer (!)
I am in charge of a commercial archaeology unit which is a self-funding department of an independent museum. Even though we are responsible for bringing in all the income for our department, I still have to constantly justify to other parts of the museum (including our Board of Trustees) the wages I want to pay to my staff.
I want to pay much higher wages than I actually am able to do so. I recognise that all of our wages (including mine) are much lower than those of our colleagues in other commercial, university, or local authority units. The fact that we are here at all is due to a lot of hard work and loyalty from all of us in the archaeology team.
I pay my site assistants a rate which is below the current BAJR minimum (although was just above it until April!). I want to raise this, but to do so have to wait for the Museum's annual pay review (every June, nearly there) and submit my requests with supporting arguments, to the Board of Trustees. Quite often this is a haggling process and what I ask for gets knocked down to what they think can be afforded.
However our archaeology wages are actually quite a good wage by the standards of other parts of the Museum (a museum which, incidentally, recieves no government income or support and is entirely dependent on visitor numbers for its revenue). Many staff at the museum recieve much less than they would doing comparable jobs in other walks of life. I am not prepared to give examples on this forum for obvious reasons. But suffice to say that our archaeology field officers get more than high-level secretarial staff who in any other walk of life would be on at least £20,000.
I am NOT justifying low wages. I agree with all the comments that high wages attract high calibre staff which increases the quality of the work undertaken and ultimately value for the customer (whether the customer is a developer client or a museum visitor). I am simply saying that lower wages are part and parcel of the museum world. If there was a BMJR acting with the same enthusiasm and dedication as BAJR then maybe things would be different.
I am in charge of a commercial archaeology unit which is a self-funding department of an independent museum. Even though we are responsible for bringing in all the income for our department, I still have to constantly justify to other parts of the museum (including our Board of Trustees) the wages I want to pay to my staff.
I want to pay much higher wages than I actually am able to do so. I recognise that all of our wages (including mine) are much lower than those of our colleagues in other commercial, university, or local authority units. The fact that we are here at all is due to a lot of hard work and loyalty from all of us in the archaeology team.
I pay my site assistants a rate which is below the current BAJR minimum (although was just above it until April!). I want to raise this, but to do so have to wait for the Museum's annual pay review (every June, nearly there) and submit my requests with supporting arguments, to the Board of Trustees. Quite often this is a haggling process and what I ask for gets knocked down to what they think can be afforded.
However our archaeology wages are actually quite a good wage by the standards of other parts of the Museum (a museum which, incidentally, recieves no government income or support and is entirely dependent on visitor numbers for its revenue). Many staff at the museum recieve much less than they would doing comparable jobs in other walks of life. I am not prepared to give examples on this forum for obvious reasons. But suffice to say that our archaeology field officers get more than high-level secretarial staff who in any other walk of life would be on at least £20,000.
I am NOT justifying low wages. I agree with all the comments that high wages attract high calibre staff which increases the quality of the work undertaken and ultimately value for the customer (whether the customer is a developer client or a museum visitor). I am simply saying that lower wages are part and parcel of the museum world. If there was a BMJR acting with the same enthusiasm and dedication as BAJR then maybe things would be different.