Chiz As you say in your response
These are just some of the variables which I am suggesting that you needed to separate out. Your survey starts with the “inequalities” that the two groups first get upset about- The group that have their homes close to the office and those who don’t. I think that it might be fair to imagine that those who live close probably occupy the more senior, longer associated positions in your survey and those whose “home” are furthest away are probably the most recent employees on the shortest contracts. You have then conflagrated these issues with those who are employed on a site based away from the “office”. We can imagine that this also creates other groups, possibly another two- those who happen to have a “home” close to the site and those that dont.
We now have four potential groups. (Lets not start thinking about those who were employed for the away job but happened to live close to the office but I suspect they are a signicant group) Obviously given the random nature of all things these four (five) groups don’t necessarily inhabit the site in equal numbers/ genders / age groups and assorted disabilities. Throw in a bit of whos doing the driving, b&b, rented, camper van and whos turn it is to do the tea, rumour’s of lack of a next job and basically you can write the results of your survey.
Now tax is cruel but has common law scenarios for any of these groups and all these scenarios will be based on where the “normal place of work” is defined and no mention of home or hearths except that the employee will be expected to pay for travel, ordinary clothes and food to enjoy this “employment” at this defined normal place of work for tax purposes .
And what I would like you to have found from your survey is that self employment pays in as much that these four (+) groups of employment are all dissatisfied mostly because they feel they have been taken advantage of -be it through standard management divide and conquer techniques (which they have learnt from dealing with unions) and so naturally these "workers" feel that they inhabit an even more temporary and tenuous position than if they were closer to the office base. Well the self employed have already faced up to the tenuous position of archaeological site based life but have the advantage that they can claim legitimate business expenses such as using the mobile to find the next job that probably includes phoning home to see if any mail has arrived because there is a good chance that their "home" is defined for tax purposes as their office (of sorts).
But then the ifa/bajr are still struggling to accept that anybody who calls themselves an archaeologist needs to be self-employed to overcome all the problems and more that your survey alluded to, let alone try and help the average self employed negotiate more permanat understanding with the tax authorities than the twittering of unitof1 or bajr.
How many self-employed answered the survey? Is it cause they felt that it wasn’t for archaeologists.
Quote:If we only asked about those sites which are away from the office, we would have missed out on the experiences of those who do not live near the office in the first place and are working away from home even when they are washing finds in the office!
These are just some of the variables which I am suggesting that you needed to separate out. Your survey starts with the “inequalities” that the two groups first get upset about- The group that have their homes close to the office and those who don’t. I think that it might be fair to imagine that those who live close probably occupy the more senior, longer associated positions in your survey and those whose “home” are furthest away are probably the most recent employees on the shortest contracts. You have then conflagrated these issues with those who are employed on a site based away from the “office”. We can imagine that this also creates other groups, possibly another two- those who happen to have a “home” close to the site and those that dont.
We now have four potential groups. (Lets not start thinking about those who were employed for the away job but happened to live close to the office but I suspect they are a signicant group) Obviously given the random nature of all things these four (five) groups don’t necessarily inhabit the site in equal numbers/ genders / age groups and assorted disabilities. Throw in a bit of whos doing the driving, b&b, rented, camper van and whos turn it is to do the tea, rumour’s of lack of a next job and basically you can write the results of your survey.
Now tax is cruel but has common law scenarios for any of these groups and all these scenarios will be based on where the “normal place of work” is defined and no mention of home or hearths except that the employee will be expected to pay for travel, ordinary clothes and food to enjoy this “employment” at this defined normal place of work for tax purposes .
And what I would like you to have found from your survey is that self employment pays in as much that these four (+) groups of employment are all dissatisfied mostly because they feel they have been taken advantage of -be it through standard management divide and conquer techniques (which they have learnt from dealing with unions) and so naturally these "workers" feel that they inhabit an even more temporary and tenuous position than if they were closer to the office base. Well the self employed have already faced up to the tenuous position of archaeological site based life but have the advantage that they can claim legitimate business expenses such as using the mobile to find the next job that probably includes phoning home to see if any mail has arrived because there is a good chance that their "home" is defined for tax purposes as their office (of sorts).
But then the ifa/bajr are still struggling to accept that anybody who calls themselves an archaeologist needs to be self-employed to overcome all the problems and more that your survey alluded to, let alone try and help the average self employed negotiate more permanat understanding with the tax authorities than the twittering of unitof1 or bajr.
How many self-employed answered the survey? Is it cause they felt that it wasn’t for archaeologists.
Reason: your past is my past