10th July 2014, 03:18 PM
Jack Wrote:How is it that say the police, or teachers, or lab technicians, engineers get a decent living wage? Can we learn from their history/example?
It helps a lot if your clients actually WANT you product! Last time I looked, the biggest client sector for archaeology (the developers) not only didn't want our reports, they didn't even want us getting under foot. They only have us because those nasty planners make them hire us to clear away "heritage contamination" that often they don't even notice unless it is pointed out to them. And if we all went on strike, they'd squeal to the Gov't about how we were holding back economic growth and "hey presto" a dictat from on high would nullify those pesky & unreasonable archaeology planning conditions...
Now, there ARE folks who want our products, but they are primarily third-party clients like researchers, HERs, heritage television producers, and of course the general public. Occasionally a research body might pay directly for archaeology, but mostly they feed on the archives & reports generated by developer-funded work.
So, the real trick is "how do we raise our profile with the third-party public?" to the point where the developers fear to cut back on our unwanted contribution to their developments because of the public outcry it would generate. Only then can the various units try to raise the game rather than underbid each other in a race to the bottom. And that in turn translates to higher wages...