IfA Minima Debate - THE RESULT

[Martin Locock]

The truth is that the rationale for the RO link to minima has always been a bit of a stretch. The argument goes that firms that don't pay above the minima "may have difficulty recruiting or retaining appropriately skilled staff" to work at the required standard. This is a different thing to finding out whether they do in fact have such difficulty, or indeed whether that difficulty has an effect on the standards of the work of the RO. To me the most hopeful part of the announcement was the intention to look at FAME as a an employer body which actually has the power to address pay across the profession - in many ways IfA has had to make the running in a lot of areas where FAME would be the obvious forum.

[BAJR]

To me the most hopeful part of the announcement was the intention to look at FAME as a an employer body which actually has the power to address pay across the profession - in many ways IfA has had to make the running in a lot of areas where FAME would be the obvious forum.

As has been said for many years...I qte agree. BUT

FAME talks to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx? er.. Prospect? ... um? is that representative?

FAME can't negotiate with itself it needs someone to talk to. Unionise !

[Dinosaur]

How much should a mifa be paid to fill in a context sheet?

Could they afford the training to do so?

[BAJR]

I would one day love to see ( and perhaps frame ) Uo1s Context Card, if a) he would let me see it, b) I could afford to see it and c) it did not fall into a copyrighted litigation...

However...

:face-topic:

[Unitof1]

I think that I am on topic. The ifa is about being an archaeologist. Their fully formed archaeologist they would like to call a mifa. This topic whether there should be a minima is about mifas. Pifa and aifa grades are stepping stones to being a mifa. That’s their structure.

The IfA offers three corporate grades of membership: Practitioner (PIfA) grade is the first level of corporate membership; Associate (AIfA) grade provides an intermediate level and Members (MIfAs) represent the highest level of corporate membership open to those with the greatest level of responsibility and competence. Corporate members may be professional or amateur archaeologists and are permitted to use the relevant four letter abbreviation after their names.[SUP][3][/SUP] All corporate members have full voting rights within the Institute.

Heres the ifa load of woffle about what being a grade on one of these minima is

PRACTITIONER
This is our first level of corporate grade membership, open to those who have
undertaken skilled tasks within the historic environment sector under the guidance of
others, and have carried out responsible work under a level of supervision.
Practitioners (PIfAs) also
 have a good working knowledge of key aspects of historic environment practice
 are able to achieve tasks using their own judgment, whilst working under general supervision
 appreciate complex situations and are able to achieve a partial resolution alone
 see actions as a series of steps and recognise the importance of each role in the team


ASSOCIATE
This is our second level of corporate grade membership, open to those who have
carried out, delegated or brought pieces of work to conclusion within the historic
environment sector, with some autonomy but without holding ultimate responsibility.
Associates (AIfAs) also
 have a high level of working and background knowledge relevant to their area of his-toric environment practice
 have considerable responsibility for their own work using their own judgment, but within an established framework
 cope with complex situations through deliberate analysis and planning
 see actions at least partly in terms of longer-term or wider goals

MEMBER
This is our highest level of corporate grade membership, open to those of the greatest
level of responsibility and competence within the historic environment sector with sole
responsibility to initiate, negotiate, carry out and/or delegate, and bring pieces of work
to a conclusion. Members are in charge of organising and running large, complex
projects from beginning to end, or in highly skilled, specialist work.
Members (MIfAs) also
 have authoritative knowledge and depth of understanding of the sector and their area of historic environment practice
 take full responsibility for their own work and that of others where applicable
 deal with complex situations holistically and demonstrate confident decision making
 have a high level of understanding of the overall ‘picture’ and see alternative

which bit might relate to any job description that fills in a context sheet on site. A pifa is a digger? enlighten me. I cant work out what you have been trying to protect or what crime a so called RO is getting away with or not depending if there are minima or not. I particularly dont see what mifas have to do with filling in a context sheet. Lacocks comments have so far come the closest to spotting that this subject is about management of archaeologists like hospital managers managing doctors rather than archaeologists managing archaeologists or working with them.

Right now adas are trying to publish my site reports and they are about to get my views any day now, might be your last chance to see anything of mine.

[kevin wooldridge]

Looking to the future. Where does all the effort, goodwill and positivity put into campaigning for IfA to maintain the salary minima go from here? Is it a good time for Prospect, Unison, Unite etc to seize upon the enthusiasm and try and get archaeologists campaigning for across the board increases and not to allow ANY employer to drop wage levels? Maybe we need to start another thread and get some feedback from the Unions.....

[Unitof1]

Which wage levels Kev?

[chiz]

As has been said for many years...I qte agree. BUT

FAME talks to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx? er.. Prospect? ... um? is that representative?

FAME can't negotiate with itself it needs someone to talk to. Unionise !

I think the problem is the other way round. Prospect has been trying to talk to FAME, but FAME can't get itself together to talk for itself -herding cats anyone? (Although I do agree that higher union membership and representation would make things easier and better on many fronts for both employees and employers).

So IfA is stuck having to do a job that isn't really its job and taking all the flak, whilst those employers who are f*cking everyone over laugh at us all from the sidelines. But despite that, IfA has said that it is committed to seeing pay as an integral part of standards and to keeping the minima, it didn't duck that issue, and it did put up minima by 3.1% -the highest of the 6 options on the table.

Don't get me wrong -its far from ideal what happened yesterday, and oddly I didn't agree with scrapping compulsory minima, but the legal issues once raised have an inevitable and hideous momentum, and although they might argue about the legal advice, in the end almost every organisation would have followed it.

Having accepted you can't set a minima due to cartel issues (and BTW the Law Society are allowed to because they are outside the laws that apply to mere mortals) then where are you? You have to try and construct a mechanism, clumsy as it is at present, to keep everyone from just cutting wages, because as we all know: bad archaeologists will cut wages, and good archaeologists will work for them -and say 'thankyou'. That is what the IfA is trying to do, to make it as hard as possible to pay sub minima within the law, and if you do pay sub minima and want to stay an RO then its only because you give so much other extra benefits that the job is comparable, and essentially it is less costly to just pay people more.

As we have said from the outset, the proof will be in creating an effective way to make sure that anyone trying to sneak in sub minima wages gets stamped on unless their 'extras' mean that they really are a good employer. That will be down to all of us. I'd like some method of identifying those that pay sub minima, a name and shame or visible indicator of compliance so everyone can see who is bad and who is good -this used to be in place so shouldn't be hard to reinstate. I think additionally that all ROs should have to apply for permission to pay below minima in advance -so its not a retrospective audit, but done before any change in wage. There's a lot to sort out, but I think we are in a better place than we could have been, we just need to seriously keep on the case.

Oh, and the big ROs playing a long game? Really? Some of them haven't the cash flow to pay the milkman.

[kevin wooldridge]

Maybe the IfA needs to adopt the old 'blackball' membership vetting as once practiced by the Soc of Antics. All potential RAO applicants should put themselves forward to a vote of the total IfA membership....if the blackballs exceed the white balls.....there you go!!

[Unitof1]

that would definatly work if there was anybody there who filled in a context sheet rather than a handful