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19th October 2005, 10:29 AM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by Barnesy
Taken from the RAO application form:
"Please confirm that all staff are paid at or above IFA recommended minimum salaries appropriate to their duties. Failure to confirm this will be published in the Register and Yearbook."
This is a bit disappointing - you'd have hoped that failure to conform to recommended pay scales would act as an automatic exclusion from the Register.
I agree with ML, - but how to influence this and get wages moving in the right direction is another matter. I'm thinking that it's time that independant analysis of wages is required. The university and public sector appears to be adopting the Hay method of job appraisal (see
http://www.strath.ac.uk/payandreward/hay-eval.html for a quick outline of the scheme - the Hay website is at
http://www.haygroup.co.uk ), and the results are influencing pay scales. Some of the groundwork necessary for such a review is already in place with documents like
Profiling the Profession. Perhaps we should be suggesting to the relevant bodies - IFA, SCAUM, ALGAO, Prospect etc - that such an evaluation of the profession takes place across the board?
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19th October 2005, 06:57 PM
very intere
sting....
Another day another WSI?
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20th October 2005, 11:42 AM
Don't forget APPAG too - improving pay and conditions was the third in their list of urgent recommendations.
http://www.sal.org.uk/appag/report/report.htm
With all these official reports and opinions kicking about, and nothing changing, you have to wonder about the will rather than the way sometimes.
And whatever happened to APPAG? I may write to my MP and ask (as he's the new minister for culture, I would hope he would know!)
ML
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20th October 2005, 01:11 PM
Agree wholeheartedly. Might be a good idea if we all wrote to our MPs on the gamete of issues we currently juggle.For me, pay and conditions is but one brick in the badly built wall. I still maintain that placing archaeology in a competative tendering environment is plainly counter-productive, drives standards down and,reflects a government attempt to wash it`s hands of all responsibility to the nations heritage. Selling our national identity to the lowest bidder really does induce bile.To stick to the thread, pay and conditions are indeed one of the items on the APPAG list and if we are to make any progress at all, I would argue that we need to lobby in a more high profile way. At least one high profile campaigner with the ability to plant our agendas firmly in the public eye would be a good start. Get writing to your MPs troops!
Just a thought, is`nt Tony Robinson involved in politics? High profile, family freindly and alledgedly, the most famous British archaeologist?
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20th October 2005, 01:23 PM
Last I read he was no longer on their NEC, but i shall ferret around for some other info.
(I really have worked in the field)
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20th October 2005, 07:14 PM
Well yes, ML, I think that we are basically saying the same thing. The system has been (artificially) set up on a competitive basis, following the dogma of the time, the lowest bid wins the job, so all costs are minimised. Wages are thus of necessity the lowest possible. The system is designed to keep prices down. The fact that people WILL and DO work for the wages offered demonstrates that the wages are the correct market price, in the philosophy governing construction and archaeology. Same with the hire of a JCB, you will ring round for cheapest kit with driver.
If a developer (or more correctly his Main Contractor) wants a sparkie or a plumber, he still pays the lowest rate possible. It's just a lot more because they're hard (often impossible) to get hold of.
I'm not saying it's a good system, far from it, but that's the way it is. For now....... maybe we should just supply Troll with arms.....
Today, Bradford. Tomorrow, well, Bradford probably.
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20th October 2005, 08:36 PM
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4th November 2005, 09:46 PM
Ringing around and getting the cheapest quote....
fine for some jobs-not in my opinion what we should be doing when dealing with a finite resource owned by the public!Not only that-the cheapest can be cheap either because they are a big and reputable company or-they are just simply all-round cheap and compromise on even the bare minimum.As archaeologists-how do we tell the difference?
As a bridge to another thread on the IFA-they undervalued our work in the first place!
