2013 BAJR Grades

[kevin wooldridge]

Is ANYONE really happy with their pay and terms and conditions ????.I have yet to meet such a person....................

Me.........

[kevin wooldridge]

well if you want a comments box or tick boxes for levels of job satisfaction then all to the good but given that most people would like to have a career and the prospect of such a career including reasonable terms and conditions and the ability to support a family etc i think pay is a pretty essential place to start. archaeology need not be the preserve of management apologists, batchelor nerds and the socially challanged

There are just some jobs that provide a living rather than a career...professional sportsperson, pop-singing, door to door salesperson, drug dealing, prostitution, archaeologist are trades that strike me as falling into that category. The nature of archaeology, whereever it is practised in the world, does not suit itself to a 'career' structure. Not to belittle the efforts of anyone campaigning for better conditions within the trade, but its not a career. I think you'd be hard pressed to name many archaeologists who have made a career solely out of archaeology, without reverting to some other living to supplement their earnings i.e teaching, writing, TV presenting, museology, burger-turning, tools and equipment business, web site management.....

[trowelfodder]

What will naming and shaming really achieve? Who is really going to rise up and say oh my god that's terrible lets not use these archaeological units lets use locally sourced ethically produced labour. And when someone who needs a job needs a job will they say oh no i cant work for these people they are on a list! No those that will do it will do it.

Name and shame - and what about the naming and shaming of those who are working for the low wages, those who are bringing pay and conditions down for the masses. Those that through lack of backbone are ruining any attempt at collective negotiation. SCABS

or are these people people with familes to support, broke graduates facing a horrendous job market, experienced diggers with no choice?

Is always easy to talk in the abstract but there are real people involved and real people are getting hurt. Think back to the strikes of the 1970's and 1980's although there was a lot of idealism that kept workers out there was also the community pressure that to go back would lead to social isolation and exclusion.

And will that happen here - or will as ever there will be shit loads of winging, everyone agrees something has to be done - you agitate for change and challange things, look around and the rest are staring at there shoes looking uncomfortable.

Maybe we are just too late - I just think back to the illfated BAJR conference in York. Almost no-one turned up. BAJR is self employed - he doesn't need to do this and we as a proffession need to stop relying so heavily on him to do the leg work, the negotiating etc and take responsibility.

I think that rather than naming and shaming we nail our coulors to the mast. Wouldnt a pledge which we sign up to be more producive? I so and so will not work for below ?xxx per week. Show you support the measure through action not just quietly mumbling yes more pay would be good, if you could just sort it out for me .............!

[Dinosaur]

I've always found the best way to make a 'career' in archaeology is just to put some effort into being good at it, never seem to have been short of work, afraid 9-5 attitudes don't tend to get you invited back, or attract those nice weekend double time for standing around watching someone else digging up the road -jobs :face-stir:

Oh, like Kevin I also quite like what I do and the employment circumstances I 'suffer' from, thanks. Seems to be a bit of an age split creeping in here? Presumably different generations (pre/post PPG16) having differing aspirations?

[RedEarth]

There are just some jobs that provide a living rather than a career....

Sounds like you've pretty much made up your mind on that one, thanks on everyone else's behalf. Surely every job can lead to a career, that is how they work isn't it? I'm not sure, having only ever been an archaeologist I've therefore probably got no sensible bench mark to compare with. The sports person might go on to become a team coach, then manager; the singer a producer and record label owner; the door to door salesman, the manager of a door to door sales company; the drug dealer and prostitute... er, pimp and brothel owner? Anyway, all of these jobs have the potential for career 'progress' as it might be called, as I said I've no idea, I'm an archaeologist and such ideas are apparently foreign to them. Or are they? Perhaps Dino is right, perhaps it is a generational thing, but between those with some aspiration and those who only want to be real manly archaeologists, out playing with the real men on site (not worrying about 9-5 and presumably therefore working the extra hours for free, yay!), and not thinking about their future and so condemning everyone else at the same time. Name and shame indeed.

[kevin wooldridge]

Personally I think a career begins with the offer of a permanent job. I have had 32 years in archaeology nearly always with permanent work, however never with a permanent position. I wouldn't be as foolish as to try and kid myself that 32 years of work in the same trade constitutes a career, because I have never enjoyed any of the perks that a 'career' offers. I was bothered about that once but now recognise that is probably as good as it gets....

Of course there have been some bad days, but I can't recall a day when I haven't been motivated to get back out there and have another crack at it. Of course I am more likely to sympathise with Dino's view, belonging to the pre-PPG generation. At least some of the motivation of those left from that dwindling group (those still alive or whom I am still in touch with), is to have a life AND still to work with or be associated with archaeology. And sometimes we do things for our friends and to follow our interest that maybe happen outside of 9-5...but again to my mind that's about having a life and nothing to do with a 'career'. And for the record I gave up the machismo bit long long ago....well, long before Trowelfodder started singing affectionate songs towards me during tea-breaks anyway.....

[BAJR]

Of course I am more likely to sympathise with Dino's view, belonging to the pre-PPG generation. At least some of the motivation of those left from that dwindling group (those still alive or whom I am still in touch with), is to have a life AND still to work with or be associated with archaeology. And sometimes we do things for our friends and to follow our interest that maybe happen outside of 9-5...but again to my mind that's about having a life and nothing to do with a 'career'.

I was looking at a photo recently put up by a friend of site huts and archaeologists in 1984. We looked healthy, happy... and poor. We wore no hi viz or helmets and looked like a volunteer regiment of irregulars. We cared passionately about archaeology and fun. in equal measures - we relied on each other, and looked after each other. Back then there was not too many of us anyway. Things changed though... and profession came in.... PPG gave us statutory rights to poke our noses into sites even before they knew archaeology was there. But to do this we had to smarten up, and have some rules. now we are at another change... what happens next.

The point I am making is that change happens and we are responsible for the change. The archaeology of the 1980s that I remember was great fun, but not something that meant you were going to make a living. not unless you could get into a Trust or university. but i never wanted for poorly paid work. Then came PPG and it meant we should be able to look developers in the eye instead of asking with cap in hand. I never wanted for work, but increasingly it was on sites with no archaeology OR archaeology that I would never dig, but mitigate. that said, I did lots of great archaeology as well, and travelled the world. Then came the crash... and our bloated profession is showing the signs of what was always expected. We grew into something we were not.

Archaeology should have a degree of progression that allows people to make a living... going back to the 80s is not a good idea. It should also recognise it's self important, money making expanding business model that places profit over archaeology has not worked either... so what now?

All I would like to see is a decent start off rate of pay and conditions. then a telescoped grade system that allows you to move with skills gained and respect. I would like to see archaeology be the most important thing in the tender document. not the bottom line. I would like to see less bullying and a bit more cooperation.

Perhaps that is as stupid as rose tinted glasses of previous decades of archaeology... but I will anyway... not to means we may as well give up.

[Dinosaur]

If you can achieve any one of those you'll have earned the right to die happy

[P Prentice]

I was looking at a photo recently put up by a friend of site huts and archaeologists in 1984. We looked healthy, happy... and poor. We wore no hi viz or helmets and looked like a volunteer regiment of irregulars. We cared passionately about archaeology and fun. in equal measures - we relied on each other, and looked after each other. Back then there was not too many of us anyway. Things changed though... and profession came in.... PPG gave us statutory rights to poke our noses into sites even before they knew archaeology was there. But to do this we had to smarten up, and have some rules. now we are at another change... what happens next.

The point I am making is that change happens and we are responsible for the change. The archaeology of the 1980s that I remember was great fun, but not something that meant you were going to make a living. not unless you could get into a Trust or university. but i never wanted for poorly paid work. Then came PPG and it meant we should be able to look developers in the eye instead of asking with cap in hand. I never wanted for work, but increasingly it was on sites with no archaeology OR archaeology that I would never dig, but mitigate. that said, I did lots of great archaeology as well, and travelled the world. Then came the crash... and our bloated profession is showing the signs of what was always expected. We grew into something we were not.

Archaeology should have a degree of progression that allows people to make a living... going back to the 80s is not a good idea. It should also recognise it's self important, money making expanding business model that places profit over archaeology has not worked either... so what now?

All I would like to see is a decent start off rate of pay and conditions. then a telescoped grade system that allows you to move with skills gained and respect. I would like to see archaeology be the most important thing in the tender document. not the bottom line. I would like to see less bullying and a bit more cooperation.

Perhaps that is as stupid as rose tinted glasses of previous decades of archaeology... but I will anyway... not to means we may as well give up.

i whole heartedly concur.
there is a middle ground worth fighting for.
and there are a great many career archaeologists out there, some with passion and some still keen to contribute, but they are gradually being pushed aside or lured by the dark side. if we really profile the profession, from the bottom up and not the top down, we might better be able to turn the tide.

[Digger]

As a quick :face-topic: moment. Figures out to day has the CPI for October at an unexpected 2.7% and the RPI at 3.2%. I suspect the IFA will be working on the CPI as part of therir pay calculations, though I doubt if it will be these ones......:face-thinks: