IFA

[drpeterwardle]

I can of several current and past members of the IFA council/committees etc who work for, own or run archaeological companies. I would guess that they are present in about the correct proportion.

Peter Wardle

[Unitof1]

without asking who? (although I am not sure why not) "who work for, own or run archaeological companies" -you had to butter it up with the “work for” and I suspect that if we analyses “archaeological companies” they will be very governmenty

[Cautionary Tale]

As I'm on lunch, and google is my friend, I did a bit of checking on the main commitee:

Consultant 9.5%
Contractor 28.5%
Contractor (Uni) 14.3%
University 9.5%
Local Gov 14.3%
National Gov 4.8%
English Heritage 14.3%
Unknown 4.8%



I maiali sono alimentati e aspettano per volare

[1man1desk]

Unit of 1 - are you saying that the IFA should be run by 'bosses'? they are supposed to represent the whole profession, not just the management.


1man1desk

to let, fully furnished

[Unitof1]

I think that I am trying to say archaeologists and I think that the “whole profession” represented by the IFA committees dont look like someone trying to be an archaeologist.

Not sure about the 28% contactors- are you sure that they dont work in Non departmental governmentals and other anti-competitive county council arrangements

[Cautionary Tale]

quote:Originally posted by Unitof1

Not sure about the 28% contactors- are you sure that they dont work in Non departmental governmentals and other anti-competitive county council arrangements

If by "Non departmental governmentals" you mean quango's and their ilk then no: these are split out in other categories. As for "anti-competitive county council arrangements" that would be a personal judgement which, even if it were true, would still make the organisations contractors. I can't recall any of the members being employed by actual council run units (though feel free to check).

I maiali sono alimentati e aspettano per volare

[1man1desk]

Unit of 1,

Councils and, to a lesser extent, quangos are employers of a significant proportion of the whole archaeological profession. Most of the council employees are in units that compete in the free market. Are you saying that people employed by councils or quangos should not be represented on the Council of our professional body?

1man1desk

to let, fully furnished

[Unitof1]

When the IFA was first set up the code of conduct attempted to imagine such as thing as a field archaeologist and made some choices for this individual to follow(a lot that I dont agree with but). PeepeeG seems to imagine such a beast. Then the members found that they were not really field archaeologists any more but required to retain the “status” in their new professions and in the codes the word archaeologist was replaced with RAO. Immortal organisations are now the archaeologists. Unfortunately they did not rewrite this clearly in the code of conduct. (now the problems with peepeeG-strange hay)

I happen to feel that those organisations are civil servant led and that the IFA was heavily populated with them from the beginning. They subsequently have got their business by ensuring that an archaeologist as an individual does not exist. I dont think that this has been appreciated particularly by those who progress through the “whole profession” from “digging” and particularly when diggers cite the IFA codes in grievances as if they were hard done by “archaeologists”.

As it stands there might be “28% contractors” on the IFA committees from which they might be selected for investigations into secret allegations that then produce a chaotic citation of codes that have been broken without a description of the offences but I doubt that if you were a field archaeologist who was disciplined that you would be likely to met these enforcers of dubious law in a trench somewhere. Thats 72% and most of the 28% of IFA are irrelevant to people that like to imagine that they are archaeologists (even though its never written on the pay slip.....)

That they did this peefor for meefor responsibilities is indicative that it is likely that it is only at the peefor level that you can find somebody who can have an interaction of all the issues cited in this case. Is it also indicative that you have to break a lot of the code before anything happens...and that the code of conduct is irrelevant to what members do in an RAO well apart from the ..... clause. (joke). Any appeal is frivolous.

[Cautionary Tale]

quote:Originally posted by Unitof1

Thats 72% and most of the 28% of IFA are irrelevant to people that like to imagine that they are archaeologists (even though its never written on the pay slip.....)

Unit of 1: I can see the point you are making, but I think this issue is closely linked to the (much discussed) difficulties over the name of the IFA (i.e. including 'Field'). The IFA counts as a subset of its membership a wide variety of archaeological professionals, and all of these subsets deserve a proper and proportional voice on the council. As a consultant or local government archaeologist, an individual may feel rightly aggrieved if (for example) 72% of the council were contractors. Without wishing to play with the numbers too much, the proportion of contractors as a whole is 42.8% (including University units which do operate in the commercial sector, but not academics who may run research field projects). Over half the council counts as contractors if you include consultants who may carry out fieldwork (building recordings in particular), though I freely confess this is s t r e t c h i n g the definition }. With regard to your point about not seeing any of the council in trenches - I think 3 of the members are still non-management fieldworkers.
This compares to 33.4% in the government sector (including EH). Simply because they may not be in a trench now, doesn't stop them empathising through in many cases their signficant field experience (or indeed retaining a level of impartiality which would be required in a case such as the above).

I would also direct you to the latest Profiling the Profession (2002/3) which suggests that the proportion of membership in the commercial section was 49% (p60), so the council proportion is close to being fully representative of the IFA membership in this respect.


I maiali sono alimentati e aspettano per volare

[Unitof1]

It is about the existence of archaeologists as an individual recognised and supported through a professional body. I don’t see why a “subset” should in anyway be involved particularly when they are representatives of government and immortal organisations.

I am not a number