25th July 2011, 04:36 PM
(This post was last modified: 25th July 2011, 04:37 PM by Devillish Advocate.)
I can't imagine there is a single person or company working in commercial archaeology who thinks that they are earning a reasonable amount of money for their efforts and experience. As such, all it would take is a unified decision to "step up" the fee structure for archaeology. Companies, of course, can't make this decision on account of accusations of cartelism (if that's a word) , so it has to come from the individual archaeologists refusing to work for the pittance that archaeological companies offer.
And this is where the problem really bites - diggers undercutting diggers. We're all told from day one that we'll struggle to find a job, and if we do the pay and conditions will be crap. The old lags will tell you that you don't know how good you've got it, and with misty eyes reminisce of how they used to get put up in hovels made of sheep dung and had to drink cow's piss cos that's all the management would provide. And so, if we all band together and say "no, we won't work for less than ?15 an hour, plus expenses, you slave-driving arses" , there are a new generation of diggers who will not only expect, but gladly accept, work on the most horrendous terms because that is what they think they are worth. You'll even find people with 2 or 3 years experience taking jobs with appalling pay scales and conditions because "well, you know, it's work, and you've got to pay the rent somehow, and at least its doing what I'm trained for and not sweeping up in LIDL."
And what's really annoying is that neither the companies, nor the client, will care that the work is being done by people with 4 days experience on a uni training dig, so long as the bodies are off site on deadline day, and some poor Project Officer will then get the boot for failing to compile an archive full of poorly excavated and recorded gibberish into a cohesive report.
And this is where the problem really bites - diggers undercutting diggers. We're all told from day one that we'll struggle to find a job, and if we do the pay and conditions will be crap. The old lags will tell you that you don't know how good you've got it, and with misty eyes reminisce of how they used to get put up in hovels made of sheep dung and had to drink cow's piss cos that's all the management would provide. And so, if we all band together and say "no, we won't work for less than ?15 an hour, plus expenses, you slave-driving arses" , there are a new generation of diggers who will not only expect, but gladly accept, work on the most horrendous terms because that is what they think they are worth. You'll even find people with 2 or 3 years experience taking jobs with appalling pay scales and conditions because "well, you know, it's work, and you've got to pay the rent somehow, and at least its doing what I'm trained for and not sweeping up in LIDL."
And what's really annoying is that neither the companies, nor the client, will care that the work is being done by people with 4 days experience on a uni training dig, so long as the bodies are off site on deadline day, and some poor Project Officer will then get the boot for failing to compile an archive full of poorly excavated and recorded gibberish into a cohesive report.