11th July 2008, 06:24 PM
The discussion upto that point had been, or appeared to be, focused on the impact of a monopoly on us as both individuals and as a profession.
Guess I wanted to folk to think of the impact such a senario might have on the archaeology itself. For better or worse?
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You're right, it is important to think about the archaeology as well and I think 1man made some really good points. In the case you mention, at least there WAS someone supposed to be there, so that was the individual not working (at least on that job!) rather than the system. There just wasn't a system before! Certainly not a national one!
Going back to the monopoly thing, the other thing to say about pre-competitive tendering, and something that wasn't mentioned by 1man, was the enormous amount of work that was done by the Manpower Services Commission (MSC). This was a work creation scheme run by the goverment for people over 21 who had been out of work and signing on for 6 months. Now, some really good people came through MSC, both people who were archaeology graduates and people that weren't, but there were also many schemes that were basically just there to take the people who couldn't/wouldn't be able to work at anything else. I was involved in taking on an archive assistant under this scheme and over half the applicants couldn't read or write.
The big MSC schemes had an almost total monopoly on archaeology in their areas. And there were no standards or guidance for them (bear in mind the IFA was only just getting going in the late 1980s and IF there was a county archaeologist they were usually running the MSC scheme - not even chinese walls then!), but this was the only port of call for the vast majority of people who wanted to get into archaeology. So, you had to be unemployed for 6 months unless you managed to get in as a supervisor (which I didn't) and then you worked a 3 day week for ?60. No career progression, if you hadn't made it to supervisor after a year you were off the scheme.
Not good for the archaeologists OR for the archaeology in many cases.
I think I prefer now!
(edited due to silly typos!)
Guess I wanted to folk to think of the impact such a senario might have on the archaeology itself. For better or worse?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
You're right, it is important to think about the archaeology as well and I think 1man made some really good points. In the case you mention, at least there WAS someone supposed to be there, so that was the individual not working (at least on that job!) rather than the system. There just wasn't a system before! Certainly not a national one!
Going back to the monopoly thing, the other thing to say about pre-competitive tendering, and something that wasn't mentioned by 1man, was the enormous amount of work that was done by the Manpower Services Commission (MSC). This was a work creation scheme run by the goverment for people over 21 who had been out of work and signing on for 6 months. Now, some really good people came through MSC, both people who were archaeology graduates and people that weren't, but there were also many schemes that were basically just there to take the people who couldn't/wouldn't be able to work at anything else. I was involved in taking on an archive assistant under this scheme and over half the applicants couldn't read or write.
The big MSC schemes had an almost total monopoly on archaeology in their areas. And there were no standards or guidance for them (bear in mind the IFA was only just getting going in the late 1980s and IF there was a county archaeologist they were usually running the MSC scheme - not even chinese walls then!), but this was the only port of call for the vast majority of people who wanted to get into archaeology. So, you had to be unemployed for 6 months unless you managed to get in as a supervisor (which I didn't) and then you worked a 3 day week for ?60. No career progression, if you hadn't made it to supervisor after a year you were off the scheme.
Not good for the archaeologists OR for the archaeology in many cases.
I think I prefer now!
(edited due to silly typos!)