31st October 2006, 10:16 AM
Well what a can of worms I have opened and I do find the responses very telling of the general attitude towards our profession. I tried to open a discussion about smaller units surviving under pressure and the initial responses were simply negative towards the unit in the example (yes David you know who it is). I would like to respond to a few of the replies.
Firstly, the suggestion that all the staff should leave on mass seems a little strange. I did not know that full time jobs in archaeology were that easy to come by that 9 full time staff with mortgages and families could find another position LOCALLY so easily!
Also the fact that we knew the wages when we took the job bears no relevance to what we should be expected to be paid today. The time served by staff ranges from 5 to over 10 years, well before BAJR rates were introduced. All staff started at the bottom and have worked their way up and to suggest that they should not expect their pay to be in line with their piers is the same as saying that someone who started with a supermarket before minimum wage was introduced should be happy with their £2.50 an hour.
I find the extreme revolutionary attitude very sad. Yes we want to earn more, yes we deserve to earn more but just because we have been told that for the foreseeable future we wont does not mean we are going to throw our dummy out of the pram and cause the unit major problems. We all like working for a small unit where we have good friends, work with extremely talented colleagues and where we do right by the archaeology.
I for one find the idea that if a smaller unit cant keep up it should give way to a larger one very depressing. I say again, what if it is simply the case that a small unit (rightly or wrongly) cant up the wages of all its full time staff over night? The general attitude seems to be that the unit should no longer exist or be punished in some way. Well I do not agree with this and I think that a world with only 2 or 3 large competing units is a sad one.
Firstly, the suggestion that all the staff should leave on mass seems a little strange. I did not know that full time jobs in archaeology were that easy to come by that 9 full time staff with mortgages and families could find another position LOCALLY so easily!
Also the fact that we knew the wages when we took the job bears no relevance to what we should be expected to be paid today. The time served by staff ranges from 5 to over 10 years, well before BAJR rates were introduced. All staff started at the bottom and have worked their way up and to suggest that they should not expect their pay to be in line with their piers is the same as saying that someone who started with a supermarket before minimum wage was introduced should be happy with their £2.50 an hour.
I find the extreme revolutionary attitude very sad. Yes we want to earn more, yes we deserve to earn more but just because we have been told that for the foreseeable future we wont does not mean we are going to throw our dummy out of the pram and cause the unit major problems. We all like working for a small unit where we have good friends, work with extremely talented colleagues and where we do right by the archaeology.
I for one find the idea that if a smaller unit cant keep up it should give way to a larger one very depressing. I say again, what if it is simply the case that a small unit (rightly or wrongly) cant up the wages of all its full time staff over night? The general attitude seems to be that the unit should no longer exist or be punished in some way. Well I do not agree with this and I think that a world with only 2 or 3 large competing units is a sad one.