15th August 2008, 09:58 AM
[quote]Originally posted by BAJR Host
This is a new consultation - check the questions below... THEN I will collate the views - create a unified reply and send as BAJR
IFA Minimum Salaries: a consultation
As you may be aware, the IFA has recently undertaken a project to compare archaeological salaries with those in other sectors. The Benchmarking Archaeological Salaries project used job evaluation techniques to compare archaeological salaries with salaries in other industries. The results showed a shortfall of between 13% and 53% across current IFA minimum salaries when compared with a range of comparator posts. In other words, an increase of 13% would bring IFA minimum salaries up to a level comparable with the lowest paid comparator. The final report on the project can be seen on the IFA website at http://www.archaeologists.net/modules/ic...p?page=206.
It is recognised that commercial RAOs and other responsible IFA employers do not operate on a level playing field and can be undercut by competitors that do not subscribe to the same standards of archaeological and employment practice. IFA continues to lobby government, its advisers and politicians hard for the introduction of barriers to entry to commercial practice, to rectify this situation and to improve the overall quality of archaeological work. While there are signs that progress is being made, it will take time to negotiate and implement appropriate measures. Therefore, the report concludes that no steps could be taken to increase IFA minimum salaries without detailed consideration of the impact on RAOs and others and without full consultation on the most appropriate way forward. To this end, RAOs were contacted in May 2008 and their opinions sought on a number of questions. Before we enter into more detailed discussions with the RAOs, we are seeking the opinions of IFA members and organisations with an interest in pay such as SCAUM, the Diggers Forum, Prospect, Unison and BAJR,
A number of the options are open to IFA., including an immediate increase by 13%, a staged increase over inflation over several years and deferral pending changes in market conditions. IFA has already had helpful and constructive comments from the RAOs, and we would now like to supplement those ideas with both your general comments and feedback on the following specific areas:
1. Whether the link between IFA minimum salaries and local government pay scales should broken
2. Whether any increase to the minimum salaries should be based on the minimum shortfall (i,e 13%)
3. If so, over what sort of timescale?
4. Should there be a review mechanism for minimum salary recommendations, and if so, what factors should it take account of and how should it work?
5. Should the process be linked to progress on barriers to entry to professional practice and, if so, how?
6. What other mechanisms should IFA use?
1. Yes - the connection is completely pointless and misleading, potentially biased towards companies already organised along such lines (local council units, universities) and from my experience counter-productive. When I started out in archaeology working at a university-based unit all the staff below manager were on similar pay and conditions as the gardeners and ground staff. Hardly encouraging.
2. Not sure - any massive increase is only going to be problematic unless it is over a long period of time. As someone already said, there is a market to consider and in a period of credit cruch it isn't going to go down very well. One thing that might help and be easier would be improvements to conditions with less or no increase in the short term, for example not being unofficially expected to do masses of over time for no extra money to get projects finished on time (which I'm sure still goes on), not being expected to travel two hours to a site and two hours back, on top of an 8 hour day for no money, appauling accommodation, etc. If some of these things could be improved it might take the sting of the poor wages a little.
3. 5 years as suggested by Hosty seems a good amount, but I don't know.
4. Not sure how this would work - the most effective technique of protecting salaries is surely the BAJR advertising blackmail method. Perhaps the IFA should try that for the jobs sheet! Any form of review would surely be useful though.
5. an 6. The current system of RAOs should be scrapped as it is basically pointless and comes across slightly like 'buying honours'. If an organisation is and RAO then every member of staff should be a member (not a Member) of the IFA. Perhaps being an RAO would entitle the organisation to a membership discount. Having a system that is supposed to monitor an organisations standards is meaningless when the Curator can dish out far more effective punishments for wrong-doing - which is worse: IFA - 'we'll remove you RAO status (but you can carry on pretty much as before)', Curator - 'you won't be allowed to work in this county again/I'll recommend that the client doesn't pay for your shoddy work as it doesn't fufil the brief'? If the IFA encouraged a greater membership it would have more clout as it could deal with dubious individuals as individuals, which would ultimately help the profession and enable increases in pay. This would also mean, in terms of a dubious organisation, that if all of its staff were in the IFA than complaints made would be on a level playing field.
This is a new consultation - check the questions below... THEN I will collate the views - create a unified reply and send as BAJR
IFA Minimum Salaries: a consultation
As you may be aware, the IFA has recently undertaken a project to compare archaeological salaries with those in other sectors. The Benchmarking Archaeological Salaries project used job evaluation techniques to compare archaeological salaries with salaries in other industries. The results showed a shortfall of between 13% and 53% across current IFA minimum salaries when compared with a range of comparator posts. In other words, an increase of 13% would bring IFA minimum salaries up to a level comparable with the lowest paid comparator. The final report on the project can be seen on the IFA website at http://www.archaeologists.net/modules/ic...p?page=206.
It is recognised that commercial RAOs and other responsible IFA employers do not operate on a level playing field and can be undercut by competitors that do not subscribe to the same standards of archaeological and employment practice. IFA continues to lobby government, its advisers and politicians hard for the introduction of barriers to entry to commercial practice, to rectify this situation and to improve the overall quality of archaeological work. While there are signs that progress is being made, it will take time to negotiate and implement appropriate measures. Therefore, the report concludes that no steps could be taken to increase IFA minimum salaries without detailed consideration of the impact on RAOs and others and without full consultation on the most appropriate way forward. To this end, RAOs were contacted in May 2008 and their opinions sought on a number of questions. Before we enter into more detailed discussions with the RAOs, we are seeking the opinions of IFA members and organisations with an interest in pay such as SCAUM, the Diggers Forum, Prospect, Unison and BAJR,
A number of the options are open to IFA., including an immediate increase by 13%, a staged increase over inflation over several years and deferral pending changes in market conditions. IFA has already had helpful and constructive comments from the RAOs, and we would now like to supplement those ideas with both your general comments and feedback on the following specific areas:
1. Whether the link between IFA minimum salaries and local government pay scales should broken
2. Whether any increase to the minimum salaries should be based on the minimum shortfall (i,e 13%)
3. If so, over what sort of timescale?
4. Should there be a review mechanism for minimum salary recommendations, and if so, what factors should it take account of and how should it work?
5. Should the process be linked to progress on barriers to entry to professional practice and, if so, how?
6. What other mechanisms should IFA use?
1. Yes - the connection is completely pointless and misleading, potentially biased towards companies already organised along such lines (local council units, universities) and from my experience counter-productive. When I started out in archaeology working at a university-based unit all the staff below manager were on similar pay and conditions as the gardeners and ground staff. Hardly encouraging.
2. Not sure - any massive increase is only going to be problematic unless it is over a long period of time. As someone already said, there is a market to consider and in a period of credit cruch it isn't going to go down very well. One thing that might help and be easier would be improvements to conditions with less or no increase in the short term, for example not being unofficially expected to do masses of over time for no extra money to get projects finished on time (which I'm sure still goes on), not being expected to travel two hours to a site and two hours back, on top of an 8 hour day for no money, appauling accommodation, etc. If some of these things could be improved it might take the sting of the poor wages a little.
3. 5 years as suggested by Hosty seems a good amount, but I don't know.
4. Not sure how this would work - the most effective technique of protecting salaries is surely the BAJR advertising blackmail method. Perhaps the IFA should try that for the jobs sheet! Any form of review would surely be useful though.
5. an 6. The current system of RAOs should be scrapped as it is basically pointless and comes across slightly like 'buying honours'. If an organisation is and RAO then every member of staff should be a member (not a Member) of the IFA. Perhaps being an RAO would entitle the organisation to a membership discount. Having a system that is supposed to monitor an organisations standards is meaningless when the Curator can dish out far more effective punishments for wrong-doing - which is worse: IFA - 'we'll remove you RAO status (but you can carry on pretty much as before)', Curator - 'you won't be allowed to work in this county again/I'll recommend that the client doesn't pay for your shoddy work as it doesn't fufil the brief'? If the IFA encouraged a greater membership it would have more clout as it could deal with dubious individuals as individuals, which would ultimately help the profession and enable increases in pay. This would also mean, in terms of a dubious organisation, that if all of its staff were in the IFA than complaints made would be on a level playing field.