9th August 2005, 08:45 PM
After looking at the plans for the Olympic Village and associated stadiums on`t net, does anyone know if it will result in a large scale excavation? What is the area like for archaeological potential? By the looks of it it could be a huge contract.
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10th August 2005, 09:28 AM
I suspect it will be a massive bun fight involving Oxford, Molas, Wessex and Pre-Distruct bring up the rear. I also expect the wages will suffer hugely during the tendering process and I expect a few crisp fivers will be bandied around as well as some very well fed construction fat blokes. Synical me, surley not, just a bit long in the tooth.
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10th August 2005, 10:11 AM
It is far too early to say if major excavation will result. In a sense some fairly big pieces of field work will be neccessary given the size of the area involved. Having said that much of the area has already been built upon and thus the state of preservation is unknown.
If anything I suspect the scale of the work will be such that it may create a shortage and thus puch wages up. Similarly the scale of the work may be such that we will see another consortium set up or all of the major players doing part of the project.
Peter
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10th August 2005, 04:10 PM
Do big jobs mean big wages? What were the wages at the Framework T5 job a couple of years ago? What did people reckon that demamd for workers did to supply?
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10th August 2005, 04:51 PM
Isn't that land all former industrial wasteland? So what will it be like for contamination? And how many UXBs will there be under the village?
Eggbasket
Eggy by name, eggy by nature
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10th August 2005, 07:31 PM
Yes the land is former industrial land and yes it was the scene of very heavy bombing.
Peter
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11th August 2005, 06:24 AM
Purely the size of the enterprise and being in London is going to suggest a program of archeological works. Therefore, more work = good.
There appears to be a shortage of diggers at the moment anyway. If this continues surely there will be a pressure to increase the wage?
T5 didn't put the wages up, at one point it was only long term work going, but the perks (Accomodation etc...) were pretty good.
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11th August 2005, 01:11 PM
In my experience, when there have been previous shortages of site staff, wages do not go up; units just muddle along as best they can instead and whinge that there are not enough experienced staff around. This usually results in the employment of people with no experience to do the work instead, so there is the up side that newbies can get some experience, but this can easily be to the detriment of the archaeology.
Eggbasket
Eggy by name, eggy by nature
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11th August 2005, 02:32 PM
To address Trowelhead's earlier point, units cannot push wages down to help them win a tender - that would mean reducing the wages of staff they already employ.
As several people have already said, lots of work means that there will be a shortage of diggers. If that doesn't mean that wages go up, at least it will put experienced diggers in the position of being able to choose what unit to work for. Units that pay low wages and/or treat their staff badly will find that they can't get experienced staff and may not be in a position to tender at all.
1man1desk
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11th August 2005, 07:57 PM
Big consortium jobs that I've seen don't push wages up at all. In fact the opposite occurred, with PO's working as supervisors and supervisors working as diggers. The job just got done with very inexperienced staff, who no doubt benefitted enormously. Everyone else got excluded or shafted. A similar situation is developing right now in York with the cheapest and least skilled unit work force gaining control of a big project. If I want to work on this lovely site I'm going to have to take an approx. ?6000 p.a. wage cut. More likely I'll be exiled to watching brief land while new diggers will get the site of their careers (and may not realize it!)
