PAY: 'INDUSTRY-WIDE BARGAINING IS THE ANSWER'

Phil Carpenter, Negotiations Officer for Prospect, explains the union’s latest initiative:
Prospect is the trade union which represents staff in the major archaeological organisations in Great Britain. It has members in the independent contracting bodies and archaeological trusts, all the national museums, English Heritage (EH), Cadw, Historic Scotland, and the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments.

One of the APPAG recommendations is that Prospect, EH, the Institute of Field Archaeologists (IFA) and other national institutions should work towards improving pay and conditions, training and career development for rchaeologists as a matter of urgency.

Both the IFA and the Standing Conference of Archaeological Unit Managers (SCAUM) have objectives which relate to improving pay in archaeology. SCAUM principles of archaeological employment practice include a commitment to 'invest in development and skills, remunerate in line with qualifications, cumulative experience and responsibility'. The IFA Code of Conduct, Principle 5 says: 'the archaeologist shall recognise the aspirations of employees, colleagues and helpers with regard to all matters relating to employment, including career development, health and safety, terms and conditions of employment and equality of opportunity'.

However, these statements have never been turned into reality. The IFA minimum pay guidelines are a welcome underpinning to pay, but they are based upon local authority pay levels and should also include other parts of the local authority remuneration package such as a final salary pension scheme, good annual and sick leave provision and travel and subsistence arrangements. If a true comparison is to be drawn then these factors need to be costed to produce an equivalent total salary package.

Prospect policy is to try to get all units and organisations to raise their pay levels and conditions at the same time. This would remove the excuse that if only some units improve pay then others are given an advantage in a competitive tendering situation.

The solution we propose is 'Industry Wide Collective Bargaining.' There would need to be a formal agreement between two parties: an employers' organisation on one side and a trade union, or group of trade unions on the other. There are already other industries that use such a process; discussions cover such issues as:
pay (including increments / progression and London weighting), sick pay, holidays, hours etc.

Before this process could become a reality there are a number of hurdles to overcome, not least who would form the employer group at the negotiations. At the moment no one organisation covers all employing units. The IFA Registered Archaeological Organisations (RAOs) cover most of the largest organisations and SCAUM covers most of the other employers and units too.

Prospect has agreed to work with the RAOs and SCAUM to see if a common approach can enable a suitable employers' organisation to be formed and appropriate mechanisms for the purposes of Industry Wide pay negotiations.

After the APPAG Report there is a unique opportunity that should be taken by all parties if they truly want to see pay and conditions improved. The alternative is that we accept low pay and poor conditions as the natural state of affairs in archaeology. We all know that things must change. If industry wide bargaining is not the answer, then what is the alternative? And if we don’t take this opportunity for change, then will change ever be possible?
Phil Carpenter, Prospect.

Web Links::

Prospect Union website

Manifesto for Archaeology