Dear Zooarchers,

I have received this and I am passing it on as it is revealing of the context in
which archaeologists operate nowadays. Some zooarchaeologist colleagues -
active on this list - are affected by this. I believe that this is not only of
concern for British-based colleagues.

Cheers,
Umberto



Museum of London Branch of Prospect 
Stop job cuts at MoLAS!

Major redundancies and restructuring have been proposed by executive
managers at the Museum of London’s Archaeology Service. Out of a pool of
13 finds specialists, 8-11 job cuts are proposed, with a further 5-6
redundancies in MoLAS’s 15-strong management team. The job losses amount
to a 10% cut in the workforce and mean that vital skills could be lost
to the Museum completely. The threatened staff have worked at MoLAS for
at least eight years, some for over twenty years. 

Executive managers, advised by business consultants with no previous
experience of archaeology, argue in their redundancy Consultation
Document that there is a ‘decrease in demand’ or ‘demand does not exist’
for the 13 Post-Roman Finds, Building Material, Animal Bone and Botany
Specialists. Yet figures show there is a total of four to five years’
work waiting to be done by the threatened finds specialists. In addition
to this, MoLAS is about to start digging major archaeological sites in
London and elsewhere that will produce an avalanche of finds for the
specialists to analyse. Demand for the specialists is set to increase,
not fall. Executive managers also argue that the specialists are not
‘financially sustainable’, yet increases in specialist charge-out rates
in April will not be given the chance to take effect before redundancy
notices are handed out. The £250,000pa the specialists bring into MoLAS
from external clients will be put in jeopardy by the cuts and MoLAS may
not be able to honour existing commitments.

The redundancies in MoLAS’s management team don’t add up either. Fifteen
posts are threatened but with sixteen posts in a new proposed management
structure, executive managers can’t explain how they have arrived at a
figure of 5-6 redundancies. They argue that the new jobs are
fundamentally different from the current ones. But is the new ‘Post
Excavation Manager’ job really that different from the current ‘Project
Manager (Post Excavation)’ job, for example? Similarities in the job
descriptions between the current and the new jobs suggest that managers
will effectively be forced to reapply for their own jobs. 

The MoLAS website says that specialists ‘are at the forefront of current
research in their fields and command international reputations’ and
‘offer a comprehensive range of services that combine reliability and
cost-effectiveness with academic excellence.’ The management team has
worked on hundreds of projects in London, the UK and abroad, including
the proposed Olympics sites. The work of specialists and management has
helped ensure MoLAS is one of the leading archaeological units in the
country and one of the foremost archaeological publishers in Europe. The
loss of their skills will damage not only MoLAS and the Museum, but
British archaeology and heritage too.   

In 1998, MoLAS staff were told by executive managers to accept cuts in
annual leave and other conditions to ‘secure the long-term future’ of
specialists and make MoLAS ‘more competitive’. But it didn’t work –
MoLAS is in trouble again. The current redundancy proposals will also
fail to improve MoLAS’s long term financial viability because they too
ignore the underlying problem – that, just like other archaeological
units, MoLAS does not charge clients enough in the cut-throat
archaeological market. 

There is an alternative. Prospect is currently negotiating with
employers’ organisation SCAUM to mitigate the affect of the cut-throat
market. The idea is that archaeological units agree to work together to
make improvements that benefit everyone rather than undercutting each
other. Instead of axing skills, executive managers should be using
MoLAS’s dominance of the London market and influence with the
archaeologists’ professional body the IFA in backing Prospect’s
initiative. They should be investing in specialists and managers, not
making job cuts.

What you can do: write to Michael Cassidy, Chairman of Museum of London
Board of Governors, Members' Room, PO Box 270, Guildhall, London, EC2P
2EJ, [log in to unmask]
 telling him to stop the job cuts. 


-- 
Umberto Albarella
Department of Archaeology
University of Sheffield
Northgate House
West Street
Sheffield S1 4ET
United Kingdom
Telephone: (+) 44 (0) 114 22 22 943 
Fax: (+) 44 (0) 114 27 22 563 
http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/staff/albarella.html
For Archaeologists for Global Justice (AGJ) see:
http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/global-justice.html

"There is no way to peace. Peace IS the way".