Death to Local Archaeology?

[muddyandcold]

Has anyone noted the sad demise of CAM ARC, swallowed up by the Oxford beast?

A sad end to local units, with local knowledge, or am i just being nostalgic? How has this change affected the workers? - their pay/conditions/holiday and pension (many of whom would have been on final salary?

A sad day? Or the birth of exciting new times?

[gonetopot]

Oh it has been noted, for anwers to some of your queries look up the 'Future Monopoly?' posts (a couple of pages back in this forum, its useful until it descends into a rant).

I'm with you on the sad end to local units but on the plus side, for the moment the local knowledge has been retained, however it remains to be seen how this pans out in the long term.

I think the new uber-unit has the potential to conduct even more research within the bounds of commercial archaeology but it does smack of a corporate juggernaught steamrollering what were local archaeological organisations. It will be interesting how the generally 'liberal' archaeological population view such a corporate outlook.

[BAJR Host]

The question which does begin to raise its head, is the nature of the beast... can a charity act as a commercial group and balance the load. For example there is often resentment from local traders about Oxfam shops using charitable status to gain an unfair advantage via tax breaks - when selling clothes, chocolate and other 'new' items.

It may be too early to decide yet for CAMarc ... the beast needs fed though as they say... the larger the organisation, the larger it has to become... so more work... more contracts... just to keep going.

Would it be wrong to ask the proportion of charity work to commercial ? (I just know that Uo1 will have some figures )

"I don't have an archaeological imagination.."
Borekickers

[RedEarth]

quote:Originally posted by BAJR Host

The question which does begin to raise its head, is the nature of the beast... can a charity act as a commercial group and balance the load. For example there is often resentment from local traders about Oxfam shops using charitable status to gain an unfair advantage via tax breaks - when selling clothes, chocolate and other 'new' items.

Would it be wrong to ask the proportion of charity work to commercial ? (I just know that Uo1 will have some figures )

Having spoken to a local antiques/second hand shop owner there is a far bigger problem from their point of view when it comes to charity shops - charity shops get all their stuff for free! Now some Oxfams are also 'specialist book shops' it does make you wonder whether there would be any point in anyone else trying in the face of such unfair competition (although I obviously don't want to knock a charity, that is a bit evil!).

Is there a direct parallel in archaeology - not exactly, and we have been over a lot of this before (see reference to previous post), but if a charitable organisation is getting computer software, for example, or anything else, at a discounted rate (as I believe they can) is this fair to everyone else? Is there enough there to balance it? Do you get comparable situations in other businesses - charity builders? Charity architects? Charity environmental consultants?

It seems to me to be a throw-back to an older way of doing things where archaeology was carried out when people could scrape together enough money to grab things before the bulldozers moved in. Also, as a charity I always assume that there is considerably less emphasis to invest in the organisation (new equipment, training) because any surplus cash is supposed to aid its charitable aims. Or am I completely wrong?

[Oxbeast]

There seemed to be lots of new equipment, and plenty of opportunities for training when I was at Oxford, though that was several years ago. More so than a number of ex-city and county units which I've worked for. Its not that surplus money has to be reinvested in its charitable aims, it can also be reinvested in the business. It can also do things like support specialists.

For all that people talk about Oxford 'steamrollering' local units, didn't they buy up Lancaster when it went bust, and it sounds like Cambridge just wanted to unload their unit. See Shadowjacks postings on the other thread. Better than than see tham go to the wall...

[vulpes]

There hasn't been any loss of local knowledge as there haven't been any job losses as far as I am aware. CAMARC / OA East have just been taken over by a very succesful archaeological organisation as a going concern. I don't imagine the alternative to have been particulary sunny. Surely better to be 'owned' by people who understand the viccissitudes of the business than by a County Council. But yeah see the other previous thread..... There have also been no demerits to pay etc.

[RedEarth]

quote:Originally posted by Oxbeast

There seemed to be lots of new equipment, and plenty of opportunities for training when I was at Oxford, though that was several years ago. More so than a number of ex-city and county units which I've worked for. Its not that surplus money has to be reinvested in its charitable aims, it can also be reinvested in the business. It can also do things like support specialists.

For all that people talk about Oxford 'steamrollering' local units, didn't they buy up Lancaster when it went bust, and it sounds like Cambridge just wanted to unload their unit. See Shadowjacks postings on the other thread. Better than than see tham go to the wall...

I've no objection to big units and don't really think of them as 'steamrolling' anyone - they took Lancaster on under similar circumstances to CAM Arc, the university was keen to get rid, but I don't think it had gone bust.

The problem is perhaps that with organisations operating in different ways (charities, councils, ltd companies) it makes it difficult to tell if things are on a level playing field, which in turn surely has knock-on effects for the development of the profession. I think it is at the root of a number of problems, particularly pay, contracts, conditions, training, investment in new equipment, where it becomes difficult to compare.

[Oxbeast]

I may have exaggerated the Lancaster situation, it seems. you're right in that you don't have this situation in comparable industries, archaeology has a background in coming from the charitable sector. I think my previous post indicates that I am in support of the charity sector in principle: I am not. I just think that they are probably the best people to work for.

[trowelmonkey]

As was noted on the previous thread CamArc had a few options before them and chose to go with Oxford. Being a county unit is not always that enviable because of the county county structure and its contstraints seem to be at odds with running anything in a commercially viable fashion and yet asks that units compete with companies who have full self-determination. Not to mention getting a quote for anything down to portaloos since the common perception is that county councils have endless pockets. I have yet to come across one where this is true for archaeology. CamArc did alot to restructure itself in recent years but I always got the feeling from my sources that the county itself was what was holding it back.

(ed for grammatical foolishness)

[historic building]

The separation from the county does also have the advantage of ensuring that the contracting unit is separate from the curatorial organisation.