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18th November 2005, 12:10 PM
Considered the very thing not so long ago. Its amazing how few people you need to support you before you can be up for the vote onto committee. 
Anyone fancy going down this road: i feel a 'bajr block' comming on :face-approve:
(I really have worked in the field)
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18th November 2005, 01:31 PM
Well, personally, I think that if Mr Hosty does join IFA and puts himself forward as a candidate for Council I would vote for him, although I have never before voted in an IFA election.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished
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18th November 2005, 01:45 PM
Quote:quote:It ought to be at least a given surely that RAOs pay the 'average' archaeological wage
Maybe so, and I would like to see RAOs paying more. But you can't specify an average; as soon as you say that RAOs have to pay the industry average, some of them would have to increase their wages - so the average would go up - so they would have to increase again - and so on ad infinitum. The maths doesn't work!
If you just specify what the industry average should be, how do you enforce that against an individual company? An average must mean that roughly the same number of people are paid less than the figure as are paid more. Any individual company could pay as low as it likes.
All that you can actually specify is the minimum that is acceptable. That does not mean that you recommend that those are the wage levels actually applied - just that you are open to disciplinary action if you pay less.
I am not familiar with the details, but as I understand it the IFA did not arrive at their minima out of the blue. I believe that they are related to Local Government pay scales, because that relates to the biggest single block of archaeological employers. I think the reasoning was that if the minima were higher, no local authority employers could join, because they are not able to pay above the scale. However, linking them to those levels does exclude organisations (there used to be quite a few, don't know about now) who paid less than the local government scales.
We could debate whether it is really appropriate for that local government link to be maintained, and I am not 100% sure whether it still is. Certainly the majority of local authority units are now self-financing, profit-making organisations, not a public service.
1man1desk
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18th November 2005, 07:36 PM
quote]Originally posted by the invisible man
What EXACTLY would you do if you were top banana in the IFA tomorrow? [/quote]
if we were all to be members of the IFA, we could form a power bloc within the IFA, ... We could then vote ourselves into positions of responsibility, .... we might change things. Just a thought.[/quote]
OK, but EXACTLY what would you do?
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.
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18th November 2005, 07:59 PM
Kevin
You say: The current 'average' pay for an experienced digger (based on BAJR job ads April-November 2005) is ?278 per week. So the IFA proposes a scheme where its registered 'best practice' organisations can pay less in 3 years time than the current industry average. That is sheer lunacy!!.
Can you post the details of this league table again as I can't find the thread where you posted it previously?
ta
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18th November 2005, 11:38 PM
I am in the process of placing my job advert data on a blog site. Hopefully it will be there in the next 10 minutes at http://www.freewebs.com/outwageuk and click onto the November 2005 link
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20th November 2005, 12:18 PM
As its clear that the IFA are determined to maintain an artificially low rate of remuneration for field archaeologists.That they are intent upon excluding field archaeologists from any meaningful validation system (fully quallified/years of experience/masses of skills=PIFA), that the IFA have no intention whatsoever of policing standards and worse-absolutely no intention of recognising an enormous need for tangible change where it`s needed most....
will someone please sell the idea of IFA membership in a clear and attractive way? 
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20th November 2005, 12:42 PM
Troll,
Your portrayal of the IFA is a travesty, and I think I have already done as you ask. However, to summarise:
The IFA do not set wages, and the minima they set are guided by local authority scales (arrived at, by the way, by collective union bargaining).
The validation system seems fine to me. I am still waiting for anyone to come up with a set of alternative criteria. And what is wrong with PIFA or AIFA anyway?
They do police standards, so far as they have the power, and are reforming the rules to give themselves more leeway.
If you read their posts, you will see an agenda for ongoing change - you just choose to disregard it because they cannot change everything all at once.
You also have to recognise that they are not all-powerful; just because they want to change something does not mean that they can change it. All they can do is try, or campaign, or lobby behind the scenes.
Please show me any other organisation that has achieved as much, or even tried?
1man1desk
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20th November 2005, 03:37 PM
I would agree with 1man on this: the IFA has very reasonably stated their reasons for their currently recommended wages levels. They link them to the local council wages levels not just because they have been negotiated by unions, but because council units represent a large chunk of RAOs and to set the wages too high too soon would be incredibly damaging to them or the IFA in almost equal measure. Yes, wages are low. Yes, they need to improve. The pace of change cannot be too dramatic if these employers are not to be left behind. From a council perspective, the units are not necessarily a profitable subsection, yet they probably conduct a big chunk of work outside the normal pressures of commercial activity. I know of at least two council units which yearly come under the threat of closure because they are an easy target. I personally would consider the closure of these units to be an absolute disaster as they normally pick up unprofitable jobs which other units simply would not consider. I realise this is a no win situation, I just thought I'd have a rant.:face-confused:
The validation issue is one which is never going to be to the satisfaction of field specialists/site assistants. The issue of link to wages has been dealt with elsewhere - stick with a decent unit and increments in wages will see your wage packet becoming respectable. In my experience of tendering for sites, the issue tended to be have you undertaken work in the area before, was your tender feasable etc. Very rarely did I experience issue because i was an AIFA rather than an MIFA, and when the matter was brought up, normally was dealt with quickly and with little fuss after explaining my level of experience. Other ex colleagues of mine had similar experiences with no IFA acreditation. Leaving the IFA completely aside, direct marketing was normally as important as IFA listing in my experience anyway - right place right time to get the job.
After that it may seem like a contradiction, I really strongly believe that IFA membership should be a priority for everyone in the profession, whatever branch. Get on the committees. Go to the conferences. Make it clear from within that the IFA standards are minimums and get them increased. Nobody would object to better standards as long as they were applied across the board, which higher IFA membership will make more likely because, to look at the issue in a depressingly financial way, higher standards patchily applied will put good units at a disadvantage through higher costs.
(I really have worked in the field)
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20th November 2005, 04:20 PM
I don't think the problem is actually with local government pay scales, its where archaeologists sit within the hierarchy of the local government scales.
Fact; There are no other local government posts which require graduate entry which pay as low as local government scale 2.
Fact; most areas of local government recognise membership of a professional body as worthy of enhanced pay scales, excepting the IFA and archaeology.
Fact; There is a great flexibility within a local government pay scale. Archaeologists could be paid for example an entry grade at the top of scale 2, not the bottom.
Fact: a study carried out by the Museum of London (the Manning Report) in the early 1980's, recommended that the entry grade for archaeologists should be local government grade 3, with promotion to grade 4 after a probation period and that supervisory staff should be on at least local government grade 5.
Fact: Of 50 RAOs, only 10 are local government based organisations. They are, Albion, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Gloucestershire, Molas, Northamptonshire, Southampton, Surrey, Warwickshire, Worcestershire. Not even close to a majority, but as you say they manage to set the IFA minimum pay agenda.
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