1st December 2009, 01:27 PM
On the subject of the archaeology work force today
I agree with this completely. I was recently on a watching brief (where the company were charging the client for a supervisor but paying me site assistant) and I got into a discussion with the digger driver, who laughed when he heard my pay. He works for a large infrastructural company in the North East and he gets (with over time) about ?32,000 per year. He said it seemed he was better off never going to college, which maybe he was. But he also made an interesting point when we got talking about Unionisation. He made the point that if unfiar work practices took place on a Unionised construction site in the North-East, builders in the south would be kicking up stink, and possibly going on wildcat strikes (and vice versa if there were problems down south). People might remember just such an incident in the energy industry earlier in the year when an Italian owned company employed Portuguese workers at below British rates.
Can we honestly say that if we heard about exploitation in a company other than our own we would do more than just laugh about it in the site hut? Are we too insular looking and selfish?
Regarding pay cuts, our office manager accidently left out a wages memo last spring which showed that our three managers got (or rather gave themselves) a 15% payrise when we were all told that we needed to be more economic. If anything needs to be cut perhaps the specialists need to rethink their position??? I've seen large chunks of a project budget go to environmental analysis which produces vague reports which seems to do little more than confirm what we found out in the field. (apologies to all the Environmental people :0 )
Davidh Wrote:You people have no purposeful Union?
I agree with this completely. I was recently on a watching brief (where the company were charging the client for a supervisor but paying me site assistant) and I got into a discussion with the digger driver, who laughed when he heard my pay. He works for a large infrastructural company in the North East and he gets (with over time) about ?32,000 per year. He said it seemed he was better off never going to college, which maybe he was. But he also made an interesting point when we got talking about Unionisation. He made the point that if unfiar work practices took place on a Unionised construction site in the North-East, builders in the south would be kicking up stink, and possibly going on wildcat strikes (and vice versa if there were problems down south). People might remember just such an incident in the energy industry earlier in the year when an Italian owned company employed Portuguese workers at below British rates.
Can we honestly say that if we heard about exploitation in a company other than our own we would do more than just laugh about it in the site hut? Are we too insular looking and selfish?
Regarding pay cuts, our office manager accidently left out a wages memo last spring which showed that our three managers got (or rather gave themselves) a 15% payrise when we were all told that we needed to be more economic. If anything needs to be cut perhaps the specialists need to rethink their position??? I've seen large chunks of a project budget go to environmental analysis which produces vague reports which seems to do little more than confirm what we found out in the field. (apologies to all the Environmental people :0 )