Is the time right to sort out pay and conditions?

[Jack]

............
But I've got involved in another digression from the original topic. Is it the right time to sort out pay and conditions. Not sure if its a better or worse time that at any other point. But fundamentally if your working conditions are poor and you are not happy with the level of pay then work somewhere else.

Best advice on pay and conditions I have ever seen on here!

Vote with your feet people.

I get the impression that in the old days (in industries that now have unions), pay and conditions were raised by all the workers getting together, deciding what was a 'fair wage' was then only working for that rate. Of course they had to brand anyone that worked for less as a 'black-leg' and put their windows through, etc. But hey all in a good cause?

[Jack]

Shirley without excavation there is no archaeological resource. The curators and geophysics are putting horse before cart when they use evaluation to find archaeology and geophysics pretends to be evaluation.

Depends on the geophysical results

Diggers rates of pay are very much based in "excavation". Its probably where they get their introduction to field archaeology and where experience of pay and conditions are formulated. On average what does the industry expect out of digging -one feature or three a day and would you cost that on a rate or price.

1-1.5 tons a day of muck shifted was the rate when I was trained. Assuming denisty of muck is 1-1.2g/cm[SUP]3[/SUP], i.e. 1mx1mx1m

So without an evaluation (the answer will not involves algebra), if you set out on an expedition to the hinterland land of excavation how many diggers would you take with you, what rate of pay would you be willing to pay them, how long would you expect them to tell their families that they would be away for and where would you locate the site hut?

Semantics you can evaluate (work out how much it will cost) without an evaluation (trial-trenching) especially when you have dug next to the new site before.

[P Prentice]

seems to be some confusion between guessing, guestimating and having a punt

[Dinosaur]

1-1.5 tons a day of muck shifted was the rate when I was trained. Assuming denisty of muck is 1-1.2g/cm[SUP]3[/SUP], i.e. 1mx1mx1m

A navvy would be laughing his head off

[Jack]

A navvy would be laughing his head off

Why so? please do elucidate

[Dinosaur]

Cos they had to dig a trench a set size in a day before they'd get hired - it was just a teeny tiny bit bigger than 1-1.5 tonnes....mind you, using a spade helps

[Jack]

But they didn't have to conform to Health and Safety nor record anything

[Dinosaur]

Can use a spade (with insulated handle) as long as you put a fence around it once below 50cm and don't even think about venturing below 1m :face-crying:

[drpeterwardle]

Back to the topic.

I think we are in a period of expansion and yes this will mean an influx of either people from the EU or more inexperienced people.

One thing that can be done is for curators and consultants to specify the ratio of inexperienced to experienced site workers.

Dr Peter
The whole basis of evaluation is for an informed planning decision to be made and thus if a planning condition should be imposed or the application be refused.

[Marc Berger]

The whole basis of evaluation is for an informed planning decision to be made and thus if a planning condition should be imposed or the application be refused

I don't agree, even remotely. It was not the basis of PPG16. The planners may have ignorantly used ppg16 and evaluation to find out if there is any archaeology present on site which is a very lazy method but field archaeologists use evaluation to "try" and predict how much an "excavation" will cost. Every time.--Evan "digging" a site which has "no" archaeology on it will have a "cost". I don't think that any field archaeologist should accept undertaking any excavation without having costed the excavation based on an "evaluation". How else do you "agree" a cost with the planners or cost an excavation let alone stand by a invoice to a client?

What is being "evaluated"?