22nd June 2013, 04:06 PM
Hi RandomGeorge, good to have some new blood on here. Welcome :face-approve:
Good comments, but, err, think you've missed the point, IFAs move towards Chartership has always appeared largely intended as part of its long-term strategy to wipe out all non-member organisations, whether they conform to or even exceed IFAs professional standards or not. Much of the IFA hierarchy consists of management (or employees thereof) of a small number of large commercial organisations who obviously would like to exterminate any commercial competition. This was amply demonstrated recently when same organisations asked IFA to drop their longstanding recommended minimum wages policy (which Registered Organisations were supposedly meant to adhere to), presumably cos it was inhibiting their ability to undercut said competion - and IFA did! [although they were subsequently embarrassed into backtracking a bit]. Whatever IFA like to pretend, most archaeologists and a significant number of archaological companies in Britain are not members, and there have been plenty of testimonies on here in the past to indicate that a proportion of those who are, are such out of fear of/pressure from the same few organisations as employers, or were mistakenly told it was good idea and have since never got around to resigning.
In summary, IFA offers nothing useful to most of its members (while happily taking their subs every month), seems unable/unwilling to enforce its own rules, doesn't represent the majority of workers in the profession it perports to represent, and is frequently held up, not least on here, as a laughing-stock. I'd suggest that it's hardly an organisation fit to receive a royal charter? :face-stir:
Good comments, but, err, think you've missed the point, IFAs move towards Chartership has always appeared largely intended as part of its long-term strategy to wipe out all non-member organisations, whether they conform to or even exceed IFAs professional standards or not. Much of the IFA hierarchy consists of management (or employees thereof) of a small number of large commercial organisations who obviously would like to exterminate any commercial competition. This was amply demonstrated recently when same organisations asked IFA to drop their longstanding recommended minimum wages policy (which Registered Organisations were supposedly meant to adhere to), presumably cos it was inhibiting their ability to undercut said competion - and IFA did! [although they were subsequently embarrassed into backtracking a bit]. Whatever IFA like to pretend, most archaeologists and a significant number of archaological companies in Britain are not members, and there have been plenty of testimonies on here in the past to indicate that a proportion of those who are, are such out of fear of/pressure from the same few organisations as employers, or were mistakenly told it was good idea and have since never got around to resigning.
In summary, IFA offers nothing useful to most of its members (while happily taking their subs every month), seems unable/unwilling to enforce its own rules, doesn't represent the majority of workers in the profession it perports to represent, and is frequently held up, not least on here, as a laughing-stock. I'd suggest that it's hardly an organisation fit to receive a royal charter? :face-stir: