pay pay pay

[barkingdigger]

Well, now you've opened the can of worms! The trouble with the whole profession is that we assume it is a valid career rather than an odd hobby that some folks manage to get paid to do.

The whole research issue is a red herring. Its "customers" aren't the paying developers, but the non-paying academic community and interested folks who watch Time Team etc. While many of us got into archaeology because we like to investigate and understand the past, this isn't the part that actually pays the rent! The commercial side is driven purely by the need for developers to get planning conditions cleared, and if "research" pops out along the way it's an added bonus as far as the the market is concerned, so commercial archaeology will always devalue the resource and those who work to retrieve it. And in the capitalist world the pay and numbers of the workforce are driven purely by demand in a harshly unforgiving way - in our business there's too little work and too many workers.

Is there a better way? County units paid from a central pot that will dig a site for the developer with no tendering or other tiers of (mis)management involved as at present? All I know is the current overpopulated post-PPG system is a race to the bottom in both wages and quality.

[Dinosaur]

...the current overpopulated post-PPG system is a race to the bottom in both wages and quality.

Actually, for most of the workforce, wages were a post-PPG concept, so we're still doing a helluva-lot better than 'subsistance' - agree about the quality bit though (with occasional refreshing exceptions which brighten my day once in a while)

[P Prentice]

............saw first hand a tender from us that we couldn't get any lower (bearing in mind the need for a site cabin, travel expenses etc.) stolen by a certain local unit that was in partnership with the client (a district council) in doing a yearly 'community' research dig/ university training dig in the same area. Guess you can do a commercial dig really cheap if students pay you to do the work!

This is all supposition though as when we queried why we didn't get the job the answer was (as always) our tender was too high...........!

within the nppf developers are encouraged to engage with local communities and provide added benefit so not all will go with the lowest tender - and project managers always have a list of excuses as to why they did not win a particular contract - its in their contract

[Jack]

Yeah, there is a little light.
On another project I was pestered to show the kids something to add to the boxes ticked in the caring construction thingy.

Unfortunately I didn't have anything to show.

Think they eventually got a photo of the kids watching from behind a harris fence as I was showing some managers the remains of a WWII air raid shelter...in between heavy machines rushing around us.

Doubt whether the 'encouragement' in NPPF will convince some construction companies to divert from their paranoid secretiveness of say nowt until the job is over.

[P Prentice]

Yeah, there is a little light.
On another project I was pestered to show the kids something to add to the boxes ticked in the caring construction thingy.

Unfortunately I didn't have anything to show.

Think they eventually got a photo of the kids watching from behind a harris fence as I was showing some managers the remains of a WWII air raid shelter...in between heavy machines rushing around us.

Doubt whether the 'encouragement' in NPPF will convince some construction companies to divert from their paranoid secretiveness of say nowt until the job is over.

education is all they need

[Jack]

education is all they need

I wish that was the case. In the construction industry it often seems to be linked to laziness and an unwillingness to do anything out of the ordinary and silly school yard peer pressure. Especially if it means someone has to think about something or get off their arse.

From reports from managerial meetings I get the impression many large companies still see archaeology as something to joke about, something to avoid doing and an annoyance.

This is not always the case as I've also come across individuals who are interested and extremely helpful, but these are usually not the ones paying for the archaeology to be done.

And it does seem to be getting better over the years.

[Sith]

And the annual magazine put out by W. Yorsks, Arch Advsory Service and Archives seems, when you check the authorship, to be largely produced by ASWYAS staff which immediately casts doubts on the 'separateness' of that operation....

As a former inmate of that particular organisation, I can wholeheartedly say that I never saw any favouritism between the two 'arms', and the advisory service certainly never did us any favours. In fact for the last 10-15 years they have been based in different cities.

[Dinosaur]

Back in the day when they were in the same building, I can recall just wandering through and getting info when I was writing a report...maybe things have changed, I have to admit it must be far more effort phoning up }