Archaeologists in Quebec Are About to Sign Their First-Ever Collective Bargaining Agreement
Quebecois archeologists will soon ink their very first collective bargaining agreement. We don't associate archaeological workers with unions, but there's no reason archaeologists can't organize, too.
Several members of Quebec’s archaeologist union. (SNAQ-CSN)
On June 18, 2022, union members from the Syndicat national des archéologues du Québec (SNAQ) voted for the adoption of a tentative agreement that will frame further bargaining proceedings with their employers. The adoption and signing of the agreement shows just how far cultural resource management (CRM) archaeologists have come in understanding — and agitating for — their labor rights. The agreement is a sign that CRM workers in Quebec are ready to put the last fifty years of poorly regulated and privatized archaeological practice in the rear window.
The members officially founded their first sector-wide union and elected their first executive committee in March 2020, following a three-year workplace self-organization process. This transformed a fragmented and dispersed workforce into a collective one. However, the members do not yet have a collective agreement, and what was signed was only agreed upon by three out of Quebec’s ten accredited archaeological firms. There is still much work to be done.
CRM Archaeology
Archaeology as a scholarly discipline certainly enjoys widespread recognition. It dwells on past peoples’ practices, beliefs, and customs through careful excavation and complex conceptual frameworks. It relies on highly advanced technological innovations (e.g., ancient DNA, isotopic analyses) to further expand the scope of what archaeologists can perceive and infer from often fragmentary data. It helps protect endangered and fragile heritage. But in practice, it also rests on often highly unequal power relations. CRM archaeologists might be among the lowest on the practice’s power-relation scale.
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