Museum Practice

Volunteers are a direct threat to paid staff ... They also make mistakes and take away precious staff time to supervise them.

Volunteers do not stay long in the position - as all think they are getting a permanent post by volunteering - and leave after a few months after getting disillushioned.

Volunteers often do not turn up in time - and can't be relied on to complete a job.

Volunteers undermine paid staff - as they do the same job for no money that paid staff have spent years gaining qualifications to do.

Volunteers are often not ideal for the job ... being from priveleged backgrounds - low waged individuals are shut out as posts do not pay anything.

Well manager volunteers should never be a threat to paid positions. Every volunteer should have a position description and a set of achieveable performance measures, just like a paid employee - but their roles must never be the same. If they were that would certainly be exploitation, and then yes there would be potential for voluntary workers to take over paid positions.

Volunteers can be an asset and a complete mill stone around a managers neck. The latter is usually due to the recruiting staff having little or no life experience outside an academic environment. My work involves me working in a variety of museums and sites of historical interest and the naivety of many of the paid employees never fails to amaze me. The lack of social skills and managerial experience means that the site can be led by the volunteers who in some cases are there for no their reason than to fill their day and socialise. Many use the opportunity to try and exercise some influence over the management of the site although they have little to no experience. In the worst cases a volunteer rises to a position of authority either pushing out a paid employee or filling a role that would have been taken by one. This circumstance is a product of bad management higher up the ladder who see the volunteer a cheap resource or do not see the difficult situation the previous paid person was in. So as a threat the blade is double sided but this is only the case where poor management is in place.
On the flip side volunteers can be the foundation blocks of a site. Many have vast amounts of knowledge related to specific subjects and bring common sense and life experience to an environment that is managed by individuals who have been cocooned in a university and museum environment. The jobs the volunteers take on are essential and yet little to no funding is allocated to them. I‘ve seen a situation where a full management meeting item was whether to buy a new kettle for the volunteers rest room!
Volunteers are only a threat if there is bad management. Unfortunately it often the case where you are considered to be a good manager purely because you have a degree. If that was in common sense or social experience I would agree.