26th March 2007, 11:26 AM
The situation is comparable if not worse in Germany. Contract archaeology here is a comparatively recent phenomenon and therefore there is no standard in terms of pay or conditions across the board, although the situatio differs from federal state to state and in how far the local/ state authorities care about site workers.
Recent exampls include either 10 Euros per hour on payroll (site assistant). A supervisor (wiss. Mitarbeiter) is advertised for 12.50 Euros/ hour self-employed, which after tax and insurance can work out far less then the 10 Euros a site assistant gets. Project officers can expect a whooping 16 Euros/ hour on an eight weeks contract...
I also recently saw one advert for site assistants for 5 Euros/ hour...
Many excavations also like to employ students as site assistants who are only allowed (for tax reasons) to work a maximum of 20 hours a week, which means that one might end up working with a different team of site assistants every day of the week.
But hey, since these folks are only there to shovel and pickaxe and are not allowed to do any recording whatsoever I guess it is assumed that its 'ok'...
Recent exampls include either 10 Euros per hour on payroll (site assistant). A supervisor (wiss. Mitarbeiter) is advertised for 12.50 Euros/ hour self-employed, which after tax and insurance can work out far less then the 10 Euros a site assistant gets. Project officers can expect a whooping 16 Euros/ hour on an eight weeks contract...
I also recently saw one advert for site assistants for 5 Euros/ hour...
Many excavations also like to employ students as site assistants who are only allowed (for tax reasons) to work a maximum of 20 hours a week, which means that one might end up working with a different team of site assistants every day of the week.
But hey, since these folks are only there to shovel and pickaxe and are not allowed to do any recording whatsoever I guess it is assumed that its 'ok'...