IFA response to credit crunch -comments

[BAJR Host]

positive proposals to come out of this, and an inclusive and open debate...... Agreed

Feeling will be strong though given the loss of Christmas Cheer

"Gie's a Job.."
Prof. 'Dolly' Parton

[voice of reason]

it would have been polite to inform members of the seminar.
[/quote]

that is what the the newspage is telling you clearly - there [u]will be </u> a seminar, not that it is happening today. It is the Executive meeting today(which nb is different from Council).

[monty]

Bob, I totally agree with the idea of positive proposals. However, much that IFA bashing is pointless, it is rife amongst fieldwork staff countrywide......where there still exist sthe long held view that its an elitist bunch who are only in it for themselves and do nowt for the people actually digging the stuff.................

[Oxbeast]

Quite so, VoR. I assume that they will be fixing a date for the seminar during the course of their meeting today. After all, their conference is light years away in economic terms. Perhaps they will be informing menbers after a date has been set. I look forward to hearing what the number of proposals submitted to executive committee might be.

[BAJR Host]

Perhaps an rss feed from the newspage might be good.. then I can add it here.. and those that forget to regularly check the IfA Newspage will see changes. Just a suggestion.

The problem mentioned by monty is indeed one that must be addressed .. perhaps another one for the BAJR Fed.

"Gie's a Job.."
Prof. 'Dolly' Parton

[chiz]

RSS feed would be good.
:face-topic:Lets keep on topic though, I think non-specific IFA bashing has been covered!! Lets see what potentially positive actions people can recommend? I'll start with increasing secondment between units instead of redundancies-although that could effectively freeze anyone not in work at the moment, out of the loop (myself included), and will increase away work, but that will happen anyway. Any other thoughts/ideas?

[trowelhead]

Its not that I find the IFA elitist, its because I find them completly inefective as a body. I have been in archaeology for 15 years and have seen the best and the worst of the proffesion. During all the bad times such as now the IFA played no improving part it was and remains market forces that influenced the eb and flow of work and employment. Get rid of the IFA get in somthing with teeth and start the new economic dawn with a body that will help when the next down turn comes. Rant over,

Yours and unemployed

Trowelhead.

Close enough for a country job!

[1man1desk]

quote:Thanks.... pity they did not post anything here... or on the Facebookpage...

It seems fair enough to me that the IfA's main means of communicating news should be via its own website. After all, there can't be many archaeologists in the UK that don't know about the IfA, and it isn't any harder to visit their website than BAJR, if you are genuinely interested in what they have to say rather than in an excuse to bash them.

Perhaps I'm not very imaginative, but I can't really think of anything that the IfA (or any professional body) can do to significantly alleviate the effect of the economic situation, so perhaps it is not sensible to raise expectations.

My own employer (around 50,000 staff worldwide, including a grand total of 12 archaeologists) have imposed a global pay-freeze; many of our competitors are cutting staff. The IfA can't impose a pay-freeze, that is down to employers, but I would be surprised if that doesn't happen in most units, together with lay-offs.

1man1desk

to let, fully furnished

[kevin wooldridge]

There are of course a number of alternatives that employers can examine before compulsory redundancy kicks in.

These include: job-sharing, unpaid leave, bringing forward annual leave, reduced hour working, early retirement, voluntary redundancy, redeployment, retraining, contracting out of services to other employers, sabbatical breaks for research.....

[Dirty Dave Lincoln]

quote 1man1desk "Perhaps i'm not very imaginative, but I can't really think of anthing that the IFA (or any profesional body) can do to alleviate the affects of the economic situation, so perhaps it is not sensible to raise expectations"
I think this hits the nail right on the head,when there is such an economic depression and a dearth of contracts (which by the looks of things is going to get worse yet) a lot of us will have to face realities that when it comes to improving our lot (as individuals) work wise in archaeology we have already lost this battle!
But what we can do is try and get as many people to join the BF,and then if and when there is an upturn the BF could work alongside the IFA to try an improve the situation for all involved in archaeology.