The Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists sets minimum pay rates which its members are supposed to abide by. I know I do and I have not heard a lot of complaints about others not doing so. I think in Australia the rates seem to work OK for prehistorians and for historical archaeologists in states where historical archaeology is an integrated part of the heritage industry. I think having a set of pay scales you can refer too makes it easier to get that pay scale out of clients.
It gets a bit dicey for me because I am in a situation in WA where doing historical archaeology, even on heritage registered places has been only lightly enforced. Therefore if I charge too much the client finds it easy to just dump the idea of doing archaeology and do what they want to do without it. What I find is that I get caught between a rock and a hard place. I charge the ACCA rates for myself and assistants and my assistants get that rate. The one that can get squeezed is me. Not on paper but in actual time a project takes to final report production against the number of hours I feel I can charge that client before they walk away. The more the argument is "this will make you feel/look good" and the less it is "you have to do this it’s the law" the harder it is to get paid properly. While my assistants always get the right hourly rate it is not unknown for my actual rate of pay to be much lower than theirs.
Gaye
-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carol McDavid
Sent: Monday, 16 September 2013 5:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Positions Available - Pay
I'll jump in, since Jim suggested in an earlier message that we come out of the dark!
Although the following may sound a bit like whinging, that is not my intent-- it's just our reality and we decided long ago to live with it. That said, when I was asked by another histarcher recently whether the nonprofit framework we have is workable -- I answered "no" -- not financially. If any of us had time to do full time fundraising it might be.
CARI, the nonprofit archaeology group I direct, pays $15/hour, contract basis, for trained field and lab workers. We budget more for field and lab supervisors when we can. We will not pay less than $15, if we have any funds at all to do the work. We pay workers the same amount that we charge the client for their time.
UNLESS it's a totally volunteer gig (many are) in which case, we ALL work for free. If funding becomes available mid-project (sometimes last minute grants come through -- see above comment re fundraising), we pay workers first, and at that level.
PI's are paid only when it is a fully funded job, and after out of pocket costs are covered. Most of our work is soft money, so we work for free a lot of the time. If we want to do the kind of archaeology we want to do (and a lot of it is for other nonprofits), that is what it takes. Good thing our spouses have jobs -- but as you might expect, the principal PI's have very mixed feelings about having to rely on spousal income to pay the rent, when we several advanced degrees between us.
We pay $10 for student intern (in-training) jobs, and we provide the same sorts of ancillary support that Jim described.
On occasion, we are criticized by local CRM archaeologists, who say we are paying too much for trained field staff. I think the going rate is around $12 an hour, for bachelor-degreed people (other Texas folks can correct me if I am wrong). However, I know several people with master's who will take that much, simply in order to work.
Occasionally we are asked to cost out a job for a public entity of one kind or another. Unless it's for the SHPO, which pays quite fairly, those asking us to do the work (usually architects, planners, politicos) never want to pay us or our workers what other professionals make routinely. No one ever questions what an architect charges, or an engineer -- those costs are just the "cost of doing business". Not so with archaeology -- not when it is legally optional anyway, which much of our work is.
Even when we do get a paid job -- say, when someone actually wants to know what a site can teach us the past! -- we have to deal with insurance challenges, especially when working for public entities. Even though we have never had a claim, we have a hard time finding either general liability or professional services coverage. One of our local CRM friends referred us to his carrier, who told us that he was no longer providing coverage if the annual premium was less than $20,000. We finally found one carrier who would cover us, and it was difficult.
I have often speculated whether the pay/value discrepancies exist because we do not have the licensing requirements that other types of professionals have. Thoughts?
If "archaeologists at large" (ha!) could agree upon some minimum pay scales that would be appropriate, given the training needed to do the work -- AND agree to always pay staff at those levels (at least) -- perhaps over time the "taken-for-granted" value for our professional time would increase. Surely there is a way to agree upon "best practice pay standards" without being accused of "price fixing". Can anyone see a trained architect --even a pre-licensed one working under a larger firm's license -- earning only $15 an hour? Much less $12.
But I can't see that happening, really, even if there was a way to establish such standards legally.
Carol
P.S. Of course, in commercial archaeology, the amount that billed out for staff time is usually more than what is paid to workers. I "get" overhead, but I still suspect that at least some of the inequities are solveable by - us.
******************
Carol McDavid, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Community Archaeology Research Institute, Inc.
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Rice University Secretary, Society for Historical Archaeology Co-editor, Journal of Community Archaeology and Heritage (http://www.maneypublishing.com/journals/cah)
1638 Branard
Houston, TX 77006
www.publicarchaeology.org
-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jim
Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2013 11:10 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Positions Available - Pay
Conrad's comments notwithstanding, I think we moved quickly away from Julie's circumstance, which is a grant-funded project not intended to provide employment. The issue is fair compensation for archaeologists, particularly, but not exclusively, those just beginning or considering the field as a career. I can speak most knowledgeably about commercial archaeology, although I've pulled a stint or two as an adjunct professor at several colleges in which the pay rate was a fraction of the combined pay and benefits offered full-time faculty to teach the same courses.
In commercial archaeology, significant amounts of money get sucked up in overhead and profit, and the pay difference between management and labor can be very wide. Government funded projects are particularly expensive, and yet the field and lab people who staff them probably earn less than the folks who work on my small private sector jobs. A more eqitable arrangement no doubt is possible. I think we need more ideas about how to increase the material rewards of professional archaeology, because, in the end, job satisfaction doesn't pay for housing and doesn't keep the pantry full. Keeping rates low means only those with other sources of income or wealth can afford to be practicing archaeologists, and we will revert to the elitist discipline we once were. And we will lose talent that we sorely need. My current business model grew out of frustration in not being able to hold on to some very talented staffers.
I'd like to hear some of those ideas in this continuing thread.
James G. Gibb
Gibb Archaeological Consulting
2554 Carrollton Road
Annapolis, Maryland USA ?? 21403
443.482.9593 (Land) 410.693.3847 (Cell)
www.gibbarchaeology.net ? www.porttobacco.blogspot.com
On 09/15/13, Martha Zierden<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
It appears to me that Dr. King has developed a very interesting research project and has managed to raise X amount of money. Folks can choose to apply for the positions, or not.
On Sun, Sep 15, 2013 at 9:13 AM, Conrad Bladey <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> It saddens me as a professional to see minimalist presence or absence
> archeology dominating the field- in the future it will be viewed as
> only minimally better than pot hunting- availability of funding has
> not brought more science but less-I can't count the number of crm
> style report presentations which were totally devoid of anthropology.
> It is all just look what we found. And as pointed out here crew pay
> does not qualify as real employment-at this point reset calls for less
> money rather than more-there is no way money can ever be found to do
> adequate work-archeology needs to be a public life way -not just a
> profession-we have not made the same progress as the ecological
> movement -largely due to professional snobbery-I have already posted
> out the waste of funds by professionals-a significant problem exists
> with the exploitation of volunteers for profit taking-the entire field
> needs rebuilding-
>
> Conrad Bladey
>
> Thank you in advance for your prompt response!
>
>
> On Sep 15, 2013, at 7:58 AM, Jim <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >
> > For what it is worth, I have occasional recourse to a quip when my
> clients try pressuring me: archaeology is like dentistry; rushing it
> could prove painful.
> > That said, I've found most of the postings on this subject to be
> client-focused. It's a little like writing about generals and
> generalship without regard for the people who actually fight the battles.
> > Is it possible that a well-paid crew, loyal to employers they know
> > put
> their health, welfare, and future first, perform better and help
> produce products that are good, fast, and cheap? Certainly that has
> been my experience, but I dare not extrapolate from a sample of one,
> and an admittedly biased sample at that.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > James G. Gibb
> >
> > Gibb Archaeological Consulting
> >
> > 2554 Carrollton Road
> >
> > Annapolis, Maryland USA ?? 21403
> >
> > 443.482.9593 (Land) 410.693.3847 (Cell)
> >
> > www.gibbarchaeology.net ? www.porttobacco.blogspot.com
> >
> > On 09/14/13, Boyer, Jeffrey, DCA<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > Many years ago, a colleague and friend taught me the basic equation
> > of
> contracting: "Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two."
> > This holds whether one is getting a house built or a site dug in
> > front
> of the bulldozers. I have to say, with sincere apologies to Chico
> Escuela, "Archaeology been berry berry good to me," but "berry berry
> good" has not always included a salary equivalent in value (in my
> mind) to knowledge and experience. I know very few archaeologists who
> are not or have not been willing to start at the bottom and work up
> but we all know we'd like to get paid up as we work up.
> > What most of us run into over and over and over with private and
> > public
> sector clients is their apparent desire to get all three and, if not,
> to get cheap and fast. Looking at it from the client side, as that
> same colleague and friend showed me, what they need and, therefore,
> want from us is a document or set of documents confirming that their
> planning and development process met the relevant, necessary legal
> requirements. As all CRMers know, or better figure out, our branch of
> archaeology-as-a-profession is a branch created by laws and
> regulations, without which client-driven archaeology would not be full
> of grads and post-grads looking for work. An industry created and
> maintained by laws and regulations has the feeling of being pretty
> wobbly and justifiably so given the see-saw fluctuations in public
> political will. We work, those of us on the client-driven side of
> archaeology, in an industry required by law and regulation and for our
> clients the ultimate product are thos e
> >
> >
> > legal documents that allow them to proceed with whatever they have
> planned. In that environment, is it any wonder that the primary
> requirements for selecting some of us over others of us are cheap and fast?
> Good is great until it impacts cheap and fast in ways that lead to
> more expensive and slower.
> > My son, a born entrepreneur if ever there was one, contends that
> contractors -- he is one, in an entirely different profession, one
> that I would think would wax and wane a lot with financial
> vicissitudes but which actually keeps him not only very busy but doing
> quite well at it -- must set for themselves and for their clients the
> difference between cost and value. Admittedly, in his profession, good
> is the primary goal of most clients but cheap and fast are highly
> desirable. His challenge, then, is to help his clients see that good
> is not a matter of cheap or fast or a matter separate from cheap and
> fast, but a matter of value, that there is considerably more value in
> the expertise and, therefore, the product of someone who is good, and
> that value is sacrificed when buried beneath cheap and fast. As he
> tells me frequently (paraphrasing), "Almost anyone can do what I do.
> Hardly anyone can do it the way I do it. That's my value in the
> situation. Are potential clients concerne d
> >
> >
> > with the value of my experience and expertise? If so, then they
> > become
> clients. If not, then they don't. I'm not interested in having clients
> who aren't interested in the value of my experience and expertise and
> can't or won't see that value reflected in how good my work is." His
> mother and I have been very concerned about what appears to be an
> elitist business model
> -- "Can you afford to turn down clients?" we have often asked in fear
> for the security of his business -- but, we have to admit, it works
> well for him.
> > The other side of that model is epitomized by those situations, with
> which we are all familiar, in which contractors underbid all
> competition and either 1) produce results that are not good, to their
> own detriment and that of the rest of us, and end up blackballed (and
> hopefully go out of business or change their ways) because their work
> is so shoddy, or 2) go out of business trying to do good, cheap, and
> fast all at once and ending up taking financially impossible losses on contract fees.
> > Since one can only select two of the three aspects of contracting,
> > and
> since, with precious few exceptions, pretty much all of us want to do
> good work, work that contributes to understanding the human past as
> well as work that provides our clients with their necessary legal
> documentation, I suspect that my son is right and we must, ourselves,
> identify value in our experience, our expertise, and our capability,
> helping our clients understand that value -- contrary to
> discount-store advertising -- is not found exclusively in cheap and
> fast, that they get value when we are allowed to work with them to
> identify what is good and find appropriate, relevant ways to balance
> that with cost and speed. After all, who knows more about what is good
> work than the people who do good work? The client might well identify
> the scope of work but we can and should identify the value of work: we
> know what it takes, how long it takes, and how much it should cost to
> generate a consistently good pr od
> >
> >
> > uct and that is our value. If we don't, then it's time to find
> > another
> profession.
> >
> >
>
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