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In 2023, labor, unions, and salaries were up for discussion and debate in architecture

2023-12-24T08:00:00-05:00

At the end of last year, we described 2022 as the year that “architecture’s labor movement roared back to life.” In 2023, the movement kept the volume on 'high.' Across the U.S. and internationally, reforms in labor conditions continued from the top down and the bottom up.

Throughout the year, worker-led movements across both academia and practice exercised their right to form a union, as well as their right to strike against unfair or unsatisfactory working conditions. Meanwhile, conversations over working conditions in design studios were joined by concerns over treatment and protections for construction workers.

In tandem with conversations over workplace conditions, moves were also made to improve salary transparency, whether from the passing of new laws on a state level, or workers themselves taking the initiative to collect and share salary information.

To further explore these trends, we have set out the key developments and stories throughout 2023 related to topics surroundi...

President Biden lays out workplace heat safety plan to protect workers

2023-07-31T17:06:00-04:00

President Joe Biden on Thursday announced plans to increase protections for workers facing extreme heat, as temperatures across the U.S. soar and large swaths of the country face heat advisories.

The President’s announcement comes as close to 40% of the U.S. population faces heat advisories, according to the National Weather Service. The country currently has no federal standards on workplace heat safety, and there has been no timeline for the finalization of one. As reported by HR Dive, heat has become the number one cause of weather-related deaths in the U.S.

Previously on Archinect: Lack of heat standards for construction workers increases safety risks as temperatures reach record-breaking levels

Biden directed the U.S. Department of Labor to issue hazard alerts notifying employers and employees about ways to stay protected from extreme heat. The Department will also increase its inspections of at-risk workplaces such as farms and construction sites and heighten its enforcement of heat safety violations. The Biden administration aims to invest $7 million to develop more accurate weather predictions and $152 million to improve drinking water infrastructure in California, C...

Lack of heat standards for construction workers increases safety risks as temperatures reach record-breaking levels

2023-07-20T15:01:00-04:00

With record-high temperatures impacting millions around the world, a spotlight has been cast on the workplace conditions of construction workers, who currently aren’t protected by any strict standard regarding extreme heat. According to a heat tracker by The New York Times, approximately 27% of the U.S. population live in areas where heat levels could reach dangerous levels this week. This comes following the world’s hottest week on record during the first week of July. According to Gary Orr, a health scientist with OSHA, there is no timeline for the finalization of a heat standard.

As reported by Zachary Phillips of Construction Dive, OSHA conducted 1,827 federal heat inspections between April 2022 and June 20, 2023, with 47% of them being in construction. Many of the inspections were not programmed, with 567 occurring due to complaints and 58 due to fatality or catastrophe. "For construction workers, the sweltering conditions mean an additional jobsite hazard. But there is no enfo...

Rhode Island School of Design’s architecture faculty gives ‘unequivocal support’ to striking workers

2023-04-13T09:56:00-04:00

The architecture faculty of the Rhode Island School of Design has expressed its “unequivocal support” for striking workers on the campus. The strike, now approaching two weeks in duration, is being carried out by 60 movers, custodians, and ground service staff, represented by the Teamsters union.

“We express our unequivocal support for the custodians, groundskeepers, and movers currently on strike for a fair, decent wage at RISD,” a statement by the architecture department reads. “As educators and practitioners, we are acutely aware that the maintenance of our physical spaces is vital to the everyday functioning of our institution and is also the physical manifestation of our collective value systems. We firmly believe that RISD must fairly compensate and support the people whose tireless labor makes our work fundamentally possible. Their labor must be valued, recognized, and celebrated.”

“When employers use standards of minimum rather than standards of care, today’s living wage ...

In 2022, architecture's labor movement roared back to life

2022-12-19T12:34:00-05:00

In any future analysis of architectural workplace conditions, the impact of 2022 cannot be understated. Throughout the year, our editorial played host to a wide variety of labor-related developments in the profession, from top-down efforts to improve salary transparency to bottom-up unionization drives across the United States and the world.

Notwithstanding decisions by lawmakers and firm principals to reform laws and business structures, respectively, the seismic shifts in architectural labor conditions were predominantly the results of grassroots efforts. Union groups such as Architectural Workers United and Bernheimer Architecture Union set valuable precedents for workers seeking to collectively organize in the years ahead, while The Architecture Lobby set out a vision for the profession that dispels the employee-employer relationship entirely.

Beyond the U.S., meanwhile, grassroots groups led to the formation of a union in Portugal, strike action and salary disclosure platforms...

Dissatisfied architects ‘would caution others against working in profession’ says union coalition survey

2022-10-14T14:01:00-04:00

A survey of architectural professionals conducted by a U.S. union coalition has revealed widespread dissatisfaction with pay, hours, and agency in workplace decisions. The survey of 436 professionals was led by the Department for Professional Employees, whose 24 affiliated unions include the IAM union which oversaw the recent unionizing effort at SHoP in New York City.

The survey, launched in April, found that architecture workers are eager for reforms in their workplace, with 90% wanting to see changes to working conditions. 63% of respondents report having little or no voice in policymaking at their firm, while 55% fear retaliation for speaking out about issues at their firm. 39% of respondents also believe their employers have not taken any steps to address diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.

Survey presentation extract. Image credit: Department for Professional Employees

Despite several high-profile developments in the union movement in 2022, 83% of respondents sai...

How Singapore’s architects are responding to low wages and fees

2022-07-04T13:30:00-04:00

As Archinect has explored through numerous feature articles, the U.S. architecture profession faces deep ongoing challenges surrounding salaries, fee levels, and work-life balances. In a sign that such conditions are not confined to the U.S., recent years have seen architectural worker movements emerge elsewhere, including the formation of unions and worker-led activist groups in the United Kingdom.

In Singapore, where only 7% of young architecture graduates say they are likely to stay in the profession in the long term, the state’s architecture body is taking action to avoid an “alarming” brain drain.

Like the United States, Singapore’s competition laws prevent architects, or architectural institutions like the Singapore Institute of Architects, from establishing fee scales. As we outlined in our recent feature on unionization in architecture, such restrictions are a primary factor in supressing fees and wages in the profession.

Archinect Feature: Unionization in Architecture: Rev...

Survey launches to shape unionization efforts in architecture

2022-04-07T09:00:00-04:00

The Department for Professional Employees (DPE), a coalition of U.S.-based unions, has launched a survey seeking to understand the unionization landscape in the architectural profession. The group’s 24 affiliated unions span from artists to school administrators as well as the IAM union which oversaw the recent unionizing effort at SHoP in New York City.

The survey was launched in the wake of the efforts at SHoP and is aimed at collecting views from architectural workers on current conditions in the industry. The results of the survey will also help DPE shape their plans to support future union efforts in architecture.

“We’ve heard rumblings of dissatisfaction among employees in architectural occupations and professions and want to help them organize to create a better industry,” DPE President Jennifer Dorning told Archinect. “With our survey for architectural professionals, we are hoping to get a better sense of the most important workplace issues and how we can best support archit...

A New Advocacy Group, "Architecture is Free," is Pushing for Reforms as Architecture Continues to Feel Pressure from Within and Without

2021-04-14T13:23:00-04:00

With the advent of the "new normal" beginning to see its effects in the Architecture world, one newly formed industry non-profit is seeking to capitalize on this transition in order to enact a slate of changes it hopes will impact the design community for years to come.

Under the monicker "Architecture is Free" the 40-member group offers a host of initiatives aimed at students and younger professionals it views as part of a growing cadre of people within the industry who have been systemically undercut in their efforts to join ranks with professionals a generation or two their senior whose success and accomplishments, they feel, are unattainable under the current "clubbish" atmosphere that plagues the field.

Many prominent names in the field have spoken out about necessary reforms over the past decade or so, including Denise Scott Brown, who serves as one of AIF's board members.

Learning from 'Learning from Las Vegas' with Denise Scott Brown, a 3-part interview series previously pub...

Second Home Hollywood pitched as a pandemic-friendly work environment

2020-09-25T15:37:00-04:00

At the end of 2019, Second Home Hollywood opened its doors to the Los Angeles area as a remedy for flipping the script on co-working spaces and a community-driven work environment. Designed by the Madrid-based studio SelgasCano, its fresh take on integrating the indoor-outdoor aesthetic, mixed with lush greenery, open office spaces, and wellness driven design created a working oasis for LA creatives. However, as the pandemic quickly impacted the day-to-day office grind, the transition to working from home forced a new outlook on the future of working in an office and creative workspaces.

Read Archinect's dive into Second Home Hollywood with Eric Lawler. Photograph by Iwan Baan, courtesy of SelgasCano

As California is slowly picking up the pieces and adjusting to COVID-19 safety precautions, businesses are opening; however, office culture is still reshaping its "new normal." Carolina A. Miranda of the LA Times, investigates office spaces in a post-pandemic future. Her case study, Seco...

The case for a trade union for architects

2019-07-18T18:22:00-04:00

Faced with this level of acquiescence, the case for unionising the profession becomes compelling. As a regulator of working conditions and a protective body for workers, a trade union would force the industry to adapt to healthier working conditions; without these decisions being left to the leading staff and management who are themselves usually under pressure to attain expected productivity levels.

While Eleanor Hill's Failed Architecture piece looks specifically at the missed opportunity of British architects to formally unionize, the argument for organized representation could be applied to the profession on a broader global level.

"The specialisation of labour and consequent creation of more hierarchies in the workplace has also led to an increasingly fragmented and divided workforce," Hill writes.

"Architecture offices today have a myriad of individual workers in different roles: the design-team alone can have five different kinds of architectural professional working on one project, and that’s without considering the many other support staff, such as marketing, human resources, front of house and any premises workers, who contribute to the business. While interpersonal divisions are a bad reason to accept poor working conditions, this extreme fragmentation between different roles may well be one of the factors preventing architecture workers from standing united in their...

Is the Louvre Abu Dhabi Worth Celebrating?

2015-03-16T17:46:00-04:00

The Louvre Abu Dhabi looks set to open in 2016, as work on Jean Nouvel’s colossal construction speeds up and his vision of a modern medina starts to crystallise on what was once a desert island. This vast project has been stupendously controversial...Abu Dhabi’s new cultural centre is being built by exploited and abused migrant workers...Fifty years from now, when the Louvre Abu Dhabi has established itself as one of the world’s great museums, how clearly will its dark beginnings be remembered?

In Jones' op-ed, he makes a strange case, stating point blank: "Nothing excuses the inhuman working conditions that have been reported." Yet, for him, these "unexcusable" working conditions might produce nothing short of "a revolutionary subversion of the old European imperialism of knowledge." Jones asserts that the world needs a "a network of cultural oases on every continent." And, if this is accomplished, "That would vindicate the democratic educational dream of the Enlightenment, from which the first world museums grew."

I'd imagine, however, that for many of the workers currently locked into de facto slavery, art and culture are the last things they actually need. In fact, they may argue that the resources currently being applied towards the museum could instead be used to pay living wages or to provide for their basic needs. Of course, Jones' point is that these issues shouldn't be mutually exclusive, and that the merits of a museum may outweigh the conditions that brought the...