We already have enough money grubbing organizations siphoning off of our measly paychecks. Why suffer another?
Unions had their place, a long time ago. We don't have the conditions in this field that necessitated the creation of those unions.
tduds
Jul 26, 18 2:49 pm
Unions don't just fight to improve conditions. They also work to prevent erosion of these earned conditions.
senjohnblutarsky
Jul 27, 18 7:57 am
Now tell me, have you ever seen conditions erode in this industry? There are some standard lousy work hours, chauvinistic environments, and shitty managers. But we're not talking about intolerable conditions here. We're talking about a few people being shitty people. And that is a constant. There are always shitty people. But I can't say I've ever seen an increase in shittiness. The fact that this is a featured comment illustrates a bit of disconnect with the industry and with the conditions that lead to unions in the first place. The two aren't even close.
People want to whine about long hours and hard work. I grew up on a farm. You worked seven days a week. You don't take long vacations, unless there is someone else who can fill in for you, because the animals can't go that long without you. You're a slave to the job, for low levels of pay, relative to the retail cost of the product.
Farmers are just one example. There are soo many more. The whining in this industry is laughable and pathetic at times. Sure, I join in, but it's mostly to poke fun at myself for having joined the industry.
joseffischer
Jul 27, 18 8:54 am
Architects need to stop whining! See Senjohnblutarsky's comment as a prime example! Until our industry can't get by without illegal labor and $12 billion in govt handouts, clearly our conditions can erode much further. Come back to the forums and complain when you're paid 0.50 per detail on the sheet and have to cover your own healthcare and NO VACATIONS.
Thank you John for setting us straight.
senjohnblutarsky
Jul 27, 18 11:45 am
And yet another disconnect. This idea that every farm runs on illegal labor and handouts is ridiculous. People really don't have a damn clue where the food comes from, or how it's generated. Sure, produce farms are capitalizing on that sort of labor, but I specifically mentioned animals. Very different beast.
Wilma Buttfit
Jul 27, 18 11:50 am
I grew up on a farm. We had a saying, "a bad day on the farm is still better than a good day in the office." :)
SneakyPete
Jul 27, 18 1:32 pm
Food comes from factory farms.
wurdan freo
Jul 27, 18 7:34 pm
Sneaky is on to something here... Most of the agriculture in the us is from large corporate farms that gobble up the soil and our water and ship their products to china. And then the farmers lobby makes everyone feel sorry for the family farm and they get $20 billion a year in subsidies with an additional $12 billion from the current administration. Supposedly the farm lobby is the most organized in washington. go start an arch lobby instead... seems more lucrative.
tduds
Jul 30, 18 2:59 pm
Farmers should unionize.
Chibchaquen
Nov 8, 19 1:32 pm
What conditions do you think lead to a union? Better yet, what do you think a union is? What is its purpose? Finally, what organizations do you belong to that are siphoning off your hard earned money? Why participate in those organizations if they are wasted funds?
Miles Jaffe
Jul 26, 18 2:22 pm
No way!
Unionized worker get health care, retirement, vacation days, overtime, mandatory raises, workplace protections, workman's compensation, etc.
I want maximum profit on underpaid outsourced labor. Do you know how much it costs to maintain a Gulfstream G650?!
JLC-1
Jul 26, 18 2:42 pm
isn't the AIA an architects' union? being worthless is another issue
sameolddoctor
Jul 26, 18 5:44 pm
The AIA. lolol
tduds
Jul 26, 18 2:48 pm
I'm always pro-union.
It wouldn't take much to reform the AIA into a more union-like advocate.
joseffischer
Jul 26, 18 4:22 pm
Conceivably it wouldn't take much, except that you'd have to replace all the current leaders who mostly make up Firm owners who directly compete with a unionized workforce.
tduds
Jul 26, 18 6:51 pm
Right, first step is re-framing AIA from being an advocate for architects (assuming clients as the other party) to an advocate for workers (assuming ownership as the other party).
randomised
Jul 26, 18 2:50 pm
When I work at architecture offices in NL I know my minimum base salary, don't need to arrange retirement, get my automatic raises and lots of paid holidays, it's horrible!
Chibchaquen
Nov 8, 19 1:34 pm
Are you a partner at the firm? Or are you simply an architect for NL? How much profit is NL making from your hard work and dedication?
a
zonker
Jul 26, 18 2:51 pm
teamsters United BIM workers union - maybe in New Jersey - never in Ca
heeroyui
Jul 26, 18 3:03 pm
YES! Definitely Unionize! I wouldn't mind volunteering my time to start this.
James Petty
Jul 26, 18 3:09 pm
There is an organization trying to be the union for architects. See Architecture Lobby.
Nope. 100% against architect unions. Just what we need, some bully lobby group keeping the bottom feeders employed.
senjohnblutarsky
Jul 26, 18 4:24 pm
And doing their best to make sure non-union people aren't employed.
SneakyPete
Mar 27, 20 11:44 am
Sounds a lot like many Architects without a union.
xian
Jul 26, 18 4:46 pm
Unionize against who? Firm principals?
The general public? I don't see either putting up with it for more
than 30 seconds...
randomised
Jul 27, 18 8:22 am
You don't unionise against something or someone but FOR something, you've got it all wrong!
xian
Jul 27, 18 8:59 am
You don't understand how unions work. Unions are not about sit ins and protest marches, they are about getting concessions from management. What I'm asking is, who exactly will an architect union expect to grant them concessions?
heeroyui
Jul 27, 18 12:38 pm
It's simple, change laws so that architects get overtime. How's that for a start? Force that number on the client and home owners. If your clients don't have the money, push that on the insurance company. What is home insurance for? Has anyone here who owns a home actually flled a claim? They tell you no, architects are not covered.
xian
Jul 27, 18 12:53 pm
You think that will encourage more people to hire architects?
randomised
Jul 27, 18 1:11 pm
I know exactly what unions are for, don't need to lecture me about the workings and advantages of those ;) living in a social democracy here in the Netherlands. We actually have a union of architects, they negotiate our base salary for example, our generous paid holidays, make sure we have a pension plan, and promotes architecture in general, lobbies with government etc...so what do you need to know about a union for architects xian, I'm sure I can enlighten you :)
xian
Jul 27, 18 2:02 pm
I'll ask you again, who is this union negotiating with? Are you sure it's even a union? Here in the states, architects find their own clients and negotiate their own fees. All a union is going to do here is discourage people from hiring architects since they will have to mess with union demands every time.
curtkram
Jul 27, 18 9:25 pm
i'm guessing the idea would be employees have collective bargaining with owners/management. someone who owns a framing or roofing company probably isn't a millionaire either. collective bargaining may be able to help architects, especially younger ones, negotiate better terms the same way it helps a framer. for us, this might include money but also possibly better exposure or experience like site visits or something like that.
randomised
Jul 31, 18 6:31 am
"I'll ask you again, who is this union negotiating with? Are you sure it's even a union? Here in the states, architects find their own clients and negotiate their own fees. All a union is going to do here is discourage people from hiring architects since they will have to mess with union demands every time."
I'm talking about salaries and working conditions (holidays/pension) for their employees, not negotiating fees with their clients. I think your idea of unions is a bit distorted by The Sopranos or something :)
Peter Normand
Jul 31, 18 11:22 am
How will a Union work for the very small firms in the US? will this make it difficult for those small firms to compete with the big corporate firms? Will we limit unions to firms over 12 people?
archi_dude
Jul 26, 18 5:43 pm
The demands they list?
Lowering the standards and experience for getting a license while increasing the costs for services. Sounds like a recipe to be even more avoided on projects than architects already are.
Looking for alternatives to privately funded projects yet charging based on value added? So creating a communal based project but charging in a very capitalistic way?
Sounds awesome but lots of holes in implementation. Maybe just take back the CM process?
zonker
Jul 26, 18 5:46 pm
if that happens, I can assure you, even more production work would just be outsourced to China, India, Argentina and Mexico - too much is already being outsourced let alone make it worse
JLC-1
Jul 26, 18 6:02 pm
have you ever heard of a professional union? seriously, that's what the "associations" are for; the fact they don't act in your behalf is half to blame on you.
x-jla
Jul 26, 18 6:55 pm
If firms had to pay half of that they likely wouldn’t hire as much staff. Simple math. It’s not like the banking industry where the ceos are making hundreds of millions. Most of those at the top are broke as shit too.
joseffischer
Jul 27, 18 9:01 am
You act like not hiring as much staff is a bad thing.
SneakyPete
Jul 27, 18 1:36 pm
I'm for the benefits, but the unintended consequences would be Contractors and Developers using this as a wedge to lobby for lowering the legal requirements to become a designer of buildings. Red states would lead the charge, possibly with some bullshit "Licensed Building Designer" crap. We'd see a marked drop in requests for services. Perhaps, over time, there would be a rebalancing in which good design floats back to the top and be able to command a premium for "Architects" but in the meantime the opposite effect of the union's goals would be realized. Big companies would design buildings while paying the designers peanuts.
Peter Normand
Jul 31, 18 11:25 am
Th left two panels in the graphic are a contradiction yes?
geezertect
Jul 26, 18 7:31 pm
It won't ever happen. Unionization only works when you have a very large number of worker bees performing easily definable tasks for a very small number of employers who themselves have high fixed costs and can't afford the downtime of a labor strike. That doesn't remotely describe this profession.
The only long term solution is to reduce the supply of architects. The only thing we as individuals can do toward that end is to spread the word to the little high school kiddies that this profession will break most of their hearts if they go into it.
joseffischer
Jul 27, 18 9:01 am
I do my part when I can!
Peter Normand
Jul 31, 18 11:27 am
We can also keep the mandatory internships and exams to get licensed instead of watering them down and reducing the hours need to finish.
shellarchitect
Jul 26, 18 8:57 pm
Wowza, some of the dumbest articles ever on the arch lobby site, and I'm normally pretty sympathetic to such things
jon ammer
Jul 27, 18 7:28 am
.
randomised
Jul 27, 18 8:29 am
(and just look at young Peter Eisenman and Michael Graves being scolded by Mother)
Volunteer
Jul 27, 18 9:55 am
Have architecture schools a accredited by the ABET rather than the NAAB. That alone should close about half the schools. (Looking at you, Ivy League)
If the engineering schools can graduate a structural engineer in four years, architecture schools should be able to do the same with architects (see above)
S - - - can the NCARB. use whatever the engineering profession uses for their members to go from state to state.
Do away with the "master's program" for people with degrees in arcane subjects they thoughtlessly majored in (everybody makes mistakes!). If they want to be an architect have them go for the four-year BS degree with credit for their undergraduate degree courses where possible. Hopefully they can finish in three or less years - at normal undergraduate tuition levels, not the inflated graduate school rates.
The Master's program should be reserved for people with at least five years of work experience.
You're welcome.
Bench
Jul 27, 18 11:29 am
That's ... very reasonable actually.
At the heart of what you're getting at (I think) is the over-supply in the US being the main problem. CAN / UK / AUS have much stricter quotas with smaller class sizes and fewer schools in the architecture programs. They also have a more robust side-system for 2-year drafting/technical programs, which occupy a very necessary place in the profession.
Wilma Buttfit
Jul 27, 18 11:48 am
but then you would have to admit that what we are currently doing is silly and that is NEVER going to happen
Bench
Jul 27, 18 1:33 pm
I dont think thats it at all tintt. Rather a raising-of-the-bar, albeit in a somewhat ruthless manner, with the aim of elevating quality in the profession across the board.
SneakyPete
Jul 27, 18 1:39 pm
IF exams are the gatekeeper to HSW, then anyone who passes them should be competent, yes? And if NOT, revamp the exams. IF schooling is the gatekeeper to HSW, then there should be competent graduates from every accredited school. And if NOT, then why keep out those with less formal schooling than graduates?
What about an apprentice path to licensure? Used to be 12 years working for a licensed architect made you eligible to sit for exams.
curtkram
Jul 27, 18 7:28 pm
there are multiple gates. the exam is only one of them.
curt, that's true, but the gates as they exist don't do the job they intend to, requiring employers to figure out the good from the bad. If the gates keep out people who have the drive but not the training yet the gates aren't functioning, leading to incompetent people getting through, then what is
the point of the gates?
Miles Jaffe
Jul 30, 18 8:11 pm
The gates are not designed to separate good and bad. They have an entirely different purpose.
SneakyPete
Jul 31, 18 10:06 am
That's kinda
what I'm getting at.
zonker
Jul 27, 18 2:40 pm
At the heart of what you're getting at (I think) is the over-supply in the US being the main problem. CAN / UK / AUS have much stricter quotas with smaller class sizes and fewer schools in the architecture programs. They also have a more robust side-system for 2-year drafting/technical programs, which occupy a very necessary place in the profession.
The US will enter a recession in 1 1/2 to 2 years from now, and a major culling is overdue
JLC-1
Jul 27, 18 2:54 pm
hopefully it's not a war
quizzical
Jul 27, 18 10:08 pm
This topic has been discussed in some depth in a number of earlier threads:
If this group wanted to have some fun they could have a mock funeral of the AIA in Washington DC. Before the graveside service a New Orleans jazz style funeral procession could make a few laps around AIA headquarters. Non band members could be carrying signs and wearing T-shirts (black) such as : "I gave Yale $200,000 and all I got was this T-shirt".
Group members could hold a contest for the AIA's epitaph as well: "We told you you were sick".
unions are dead. No firm in its right mind would unionize. No individual either. Go ahead and form a union and get ready to never work in architecture again. Not to mention the architects union would only be for architects. Draftsmen would have their own union. I think on the trade side they actually are part of the operators union. So go approach them.
tduds
Jul 30, 18 3:03 pm
If unions are dead, they were murdered.
wurdan freo
Jul 30, 18 4:58 pm
Nah... suicide.
tduds
Jul 31, 18 10:56 am
Nah...
Reagan.
Miles Jaffe
Jul 31, 18 11:13 am
+++ tduds
wurdan freo
Jul 31, 18 9:01 pm
Lift a PBR... and remember those good ole canning lines while listening to the only version of this song worth listening too...
https://youtu.be/vbddqXib814
x-jla
Aug 1, 18 9:29 am
It would work with a good Joe Pesci from goodfellas kinda leader...smack the shit out of some starchitects...”pay this intern a fair wage or in the fuckin pizza over you go!”
x-jla
Aug 1, 18 9:29 am
*oven
zonker
Aug 1, 18 11:41 am
Ah hah, your so funny - "Funny? how am I funny?, funny like a clown?, am I here to amush you"
Barry Lehrman
Sep 3, 18 3:18 pm
Labor Day 2018 bump.
newguy
Sep 4, 18 2:36 pm
The answer to this question should really only depend on your position.
Are you a worker/laborer? Then the answer is Yes.
Are you management/principal/ownership? Then the answer is No.
For whatever reason, architects view themselves as "professionals" and think that the conflict between management and labor does not apply to our profession even though it is conflict that exists in literally every industry in existence. Architects have such a terrible understanding of labor theory. The combined output of the production from the worker architects in any office is what creates the value for that firm. The owners, principals, and management all have a vested interested in keeping salaries for their employees as low as possible so that they can keep the surplus value generated by their labor force for themselves. This is true in every enterprise, and our industry is no different.
Oh, you think there is no hierarchy in your office? You think you and your boss are working toward the exact same goal? Try limiting your work-week to exactly 40 hours and refusing to meet unrealistic deadlines and see if you don't get a sit-down conversation with your manager about the meaning of "teamwork" and "professional expectations."
Non Sequitur
Sep 4, 18 2:51 pm
Not every office is structured in such a way. Mine is not. Also, I'd be the first to remove myself if ever there was a suggestion to unionized. My career growth is determined by my skill and experience alone and I will not see my personal efforts help those who care less.
Steeplechase
Sep 5, 18 4:46 pm
The offices where I have worked, the sit-down conversations with junior staff are about too often exceeding 40 hours per week.
Non Sequitur
Sep 5, 18 4:50 pm
^10% OT is the norm here when work loads are heavy'ish. That's based on 37.5hr weeks.
newguy
Sep 5, 18 4:56 pm
Steeple,
That conversation actually falls in line with my observation. Because junior staff are paid hourly instead of being exempt, the conversation about "not exceeding 40 hours a week" to an hourly employee is about getting over 40 hours worth of work done for only 40 hours of pay.
Non Sequitur
Sep 5, 18 5:00 pm
Just move to an office where they cover your OT hours. Rather simple. Work 50hr weeks? Get paid for 50hrs. Kids these days, amiright?
Steeplechase
Sep 5, 18 5:24 pm
new guy, nope, it’s about getting 40 hours of work done in 40 hours and trying to figure out why they are struggling.
newguy
Sep 5, 18 5:32 pm
No. If you are constantly having that conversation with younger staff, then it is your assumption of what can be done in 40 hours by junior staff that is incorrect, not their production. Afterall, they are junior staff, so their efficiency (or lack-thereof) is the justification for their lesser pay. So expecting them to have the same productive output as someone who makes more (and is therefore more proficient) cuts against the argument justifying their lower base salary to begin with.
Now, obviously, if they are posting all day on archinect rather than producing, then that is a separate issue. But if this is a trend that you see often enough to bring it up (as you just did), then the issue is more likely an issue of ownership wanting to squeeze more profit out of their workforce, which is an inherent property of all profit-seeking enterprises.
Steeplechase
Sep 5, 18 5:36 pm
Who said anything about constant conversations? That is something you made up.
newguy
Sep 5, 18 5:37 pm
You said: "The offices where I have worked, the sit-down conversations with junior staff are about too often exceeding 40 hours per week."
The implication being that you've had this conversation multiple times with various staff members.
Steeplechase
Sep 5, 18 5:54 pm
You’re still just making stuff up. I didn’t say I was doing anything nor do you know anything about staff sizes or frequency. One person amongst several isn’t a norm.
newguy
Sep 5, 18 6:02 pm
Perhaps you personally aren't the person having these conversations, that's probably true. And I'm sure there are poor performers as well, as there are in all offices across all industries. But that doesn't really take away from the point, now does it? The fundamental conflict between those who own production (capital) vs those who produce (labor) still exists. The details as they exist in your particular situation(s) is largely irrelevant when analyzing the competing goals between the bosses and the workforce, which is the only point I'm trying to make.
tuna
Sep 5, 18 3:59 pm
get ready to pay heavy union fees.
b3tadine[sutures]
Sep 5, 18 8:52 pm
Why? What are you comparing this to?
Bench
Sep 6, 18 12:10 pm
You literally have no income. And all the fees you just described are typically paid by the firm, not the individual.
Non Sequitur
Sep 6, 18 1:11 pm
Now now Bench, collecting welfare is a form of income. is it not?
Bench
Sep 6, 18 1:45 pm
Now you mention that, I just realized that as a new American tax payer, I am literally sending money to this guy.
(*Disclaimer: Im actually a supporter of Scandinavian-style higher taxes for social services, including welfare, I just felt the need to get that shot in).
Bench
Sep 6, 18 2:01 pm
But you wouldn't know ?
Non Sequitur
Sep 6, 18 2:05 pm
Want to revise that post there Ricky? Sounds a little, je ne sais quoi...
Non Sequitur
Sep 6, 18 2:16 pm
you've talked to... but never worked a day in one. Great credentials you have there Ricky. Looks real good next to your sexist/racist remarks above.
Bench
Sep 6, 18 3:02 pm
Not touching this one. I'm out.
eeayeeayo
Sep 6, 18 3:06 pm
Rick most firms - at least most that regularly employ people, do pay all of those fees for their employees. Some require the employee to chip in some %, in order to have "skin in the game" - i.e. so they feel some responsibility for maintaining their credentials, actively participating in AIA, etc - but in those cases it's typically the employee paying 20 to 30 percent. Perhaps if you're talking about a sole proprietor who hires production help on a per-project basis or something then they may not offer that benefit - but anybody who wants to retain employees pretty much needs to pick up the tab for those benefits. I've never heard of a single firm paying memberships and fees for employees and then garnishing them from their paycheck. People on this forum who discuss the value of paying for dues and memberships are usually sole proprietors or firm owners.
Things like AIA memberships are as much, if not more, for the marketing purposes of the firm than they are for the benefit of the employee - and anyway, if the firm wants to maintain its status as an AIA member firm then it has to pay an annual fee for every architect it employs - and that fee is more than double for non AIA member architects, so there's some financial incentive to the firm for ensuring that all licensed staff are members. These are regular costs of employing professionals - the typical outlay of fees in my firm averages about $1100 per year per employee, for AIA, NCARB, LEED, and license renewals.
You need to actually work in some firms before you can tell anybody anything about working in firms. As for your welfare analysis: there is no federal program that determines eligibility that way, and in fact there are plenty of studies showing that white families benefit disproportionately from welfare. There are certain California-specific family programs with case load limits that do work that way - i.e. they prioritize certain demographics because they must satisfy diversity quotas - I think you may be confusing some facts, which is understandable since you were a young child at the time that you were living in CA.
Everyday Architect
Sep 6, 18 7:06 pm
Feel free to provide links to the source material Rick.
kjdt
Sep 6, 18 7:26 pm
I haven't seen people post on this forum about employers who don't pay professional fees and dues. I've seen lots of people post about the cost of those things - but usually they're either a principal in a firm, or they're somebody who is a consultant or currently unemployed or something like that asking whether they should keep up those memberships and certifications on their own dime. I've never heard of firms paying things for employees and then taking it out of their pay - can you find any example of someone saying that's the practice in any architecture firm? Sure there are restaurant and gas station chains that charge their employees for things like uniforms and take those costs out of their checks, because the turnover is expected to be so quick that those employers feel it's not a good investment to provide them free, but that's not the mindset of most architecture firms or how they typically operate.
Non Sequitur
Sep 6, 18 7:54 pm
Ricky. Like always, you're speaking crazies. Come back to this nonsense once you've actually held a real job. Not going to bother helping you out here seeing as you're so far removed from reality.
kjdt
Sep 6, 18 7:56 pm
Rick I'm a principal in my firm. We pay license dues for the states in which we regularly do work (though some staff do have licenses in other states where we do not ordinarily pursue projects, and they do pay those out of pocket if they wish to retain them), we also pay NCARB certification dues, AIA dues, LEED and CSI certification renewals, and we reimburse the fees for passed exams. These are pretty standard benefits - we're not unusual in covering them. We do not deduct any of these from salaries, and do not grab them back if the employee leaves the firm. Turnover in professional firms is not typically so quick that investing a few hundred dollars per year per employee is unreasonable, and all of those certifications and memberships are part of those employees' resumes so they're part of what gets us work. As many of us have told you numerous times: you would benefit from actually working in a firm. Imagine actually knowing what you're talking about! This is the best hiring climate in architecture in the last 20 years - why don't you get yourself a job somewhere and check out a firm from the inside?
Everyday Architect
Sep 7, 18 12:41 pm
Rick, does your local community college offer business courses? You might consider taking a few so you can get a better idea of how to be an employer. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter as you will probably never have an employee, and no one takes you seriously on the forum when to talk about being an employer.
kjdt
Sep 7, 18 2:47 pm
Rick I thought I made this explicitly clear, but let me try again: we cover FOR ALL FULL TIME EMPLOYEES INCLUDING NEW HIRES AND ALL LEVELS OF PROFESSIONAL STAFF and pro-rated for part-timers: license dues for the states in which we regularly do work (though some staff do have licenses in other states where we do not ordinarily pursue projects, and they do pay those out of pocket if they wish to retain them), we also pay NCARB certification dues, AIA dues, LEED and CSI certification renewals, and we reimburse the fees for passed exams. These are pretty standard benefits - we're not unusual in covering them. Most firms of any size larger than a 1 or 2 person shop do offer this, or at least cover 70% of all of these things.
It was not my intent to turn this into yet another thread about the minutiae of your personal circumstances and why you can or cannot get a job. Do whatever you're going to do, or not. My primary point was: you're ludicrously off base with many of your assumptions about employment and practices in architecture firms, and you're doing a disservice to people who visit this firm for insight into the profession. It's irresponsible and immature - especially since you've been told how off base you are by so many of us so many times. EITHER get a job in a firm so you can talk about real life experience OR don't get a job in a firm, in which case STOP dispensing suppositions, generalizations and craziness.
Flatfish
Sep 7, 18 3:20 pm
NCARB's surveys always find that the % of firms that pay AIA dues and license upkeep are reported to be slightly lower by emerging professionals than by firm principals - but both are typically in the >60% range for all firms of all sizes, and >80% for medium and large firms. I disagree with Rick's assertion that it's not customary in most fields for employers to pay for professional licenses. There are debates about this in many professions, and not all employers do pay, but the majority do, and most business/employment authorities recommend that they do so, because any fees that are for upkeep of credentials or memberships that are customary in a profession ultimately benefit the company so the company should provide them. Besides, they're cheap benefits that are easy for the companies to provide and create good will and longer retention of employees, and they're tax deductions for the companies.
Flatfish
Sep 7, 18 3:42 pm
Per our tax accountant: professional dues are still deductible in the new tax code by employers as long as the membership can be shown to help the employee to carry out the duties of his job. That's an easy one with AIA and CSI, since membership provides access to industry-standard documents, as well as state-mandated continuing ed, etc.
And we do recognize all the others you've mentioned as tax deductible, except NCBDC perhaps (because it's considered a vanity credential with no professional value) - why would you think they aren't?
As others have requested: please don't post your assumptions as if they were fact. If you don't know it from first-hand experience don't post it at all.
Flatfish
Sep 7, 18 4:56 pm
Rick I don't have NCBDC certification, nor does anyone in our office or anyone I know, so I haven't investigated that one. If it pertains to you I'd suggest consulting your own tax person. LEED is legally required by the state and local governments for much of the work that my firm does, so there's no question that USGBC membership and LEED accreditation help in our jobs. CSI is the industry standard for specifications and document organization, and widely referenced by contract documents - so having that membership and CSI credentials is easily demonstrated as helpful. The tax code now allows deduction of memberships and credentials only if they help the employee in doing their job - and for all of the ones we're deducting it's easy for us to show that they do help in doing the job. If you can show that for NCBDC then great - I'm skeptical but not saying it's impossible. It's not one that I could see an architecture firm wanting to pay for, as it's viewed by most architects as a vanity thing for residential contractors. Most architecture firms probably wouldn't see any practical use in having their employees get that certification - but maybe if you were working for a residential contractor.
Everyday Architect
Sep 7, 18 7:43 pm
smh - only Rick could take a 7 word comment about paying union dues and make it into this massive inline thread that devolves based on him not having a job (or a clue) and ends up considering the (non)value of the NCBDC/CPBD and LEED for exempt projects.
^EA, but think about it... if there would be a union, there is a chance it ends up supporting Balkins and others like him.
Flatfish
Sep 7, 18 10:53 pm
Rick: for the type and size of projects I do, in my state, LEED is in fact required by state statute. This is not an isolated situation - there are many project types in several states for which this is the case. Once again, your "as far as I recall" is not the same thing as first hand experience. As for your thoughts on union dues: first of all, you need to learn the difference between employer deductions and garnishments. Employers can never garnish for union dues. Garnishment requires a court order. Employers can only deduct for union dues if the employee authorizes that deduction, though in a non right-to-work state an employer can deduct union
fees (not dues) from non-union members.
Flatfish
Sep 7, 18 11:26 pm
I would rather not tell you what I work on or where, so here is one from another state:
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 16a-38k: new state buildings of $5,000,000 or more, and renovations of state facilities in excess of $2,000,000, must meet or exceed a LEED silver rating or a two-globe rating under Green Globes. This has been amended several times since it was first adopted more than a decade ago, to now also include new school projects and several other types of projects and thresholds, and some requirements in excess of LEED Silver minimums.
I know of at least 5 other states with similar statutes. Some of them allow "equivalent" systems other than LEED, and some do not. In the case of the projects that I work on, LEED Silver or better is required by state statute.
Flatfish
Sep 8, 18 12:23 am
I understand your thought train, but nonetheless LEED has been adopted by STATUTE for many types of projects in several states. Whether or not that should have happened is not the point. The fact is that it has happened, and is in those statutes, so if I work on those projects in those states then I need to know LEED, so LEED accreditation and USGBC membership are helpful for doing my job, so they are tax deductible. See? It's not that difficult. It shouldn't require all this arguing from you, about something that you don't know much about because you lack real world experience. I cited an example of a statute, and you're still arguing. I'm tired of this thread. Good night.
SneakyPete
Mar 27, 20 11:51 am
...
archinine
Sep 6, 18 1:50 pm
The problem isn’t architects as employers but architects as a group allowing the degrdation of scope of services and fees. Just consider how many various ‘consultants’ are present and collecting checks for any given project, all of whose tasks in another era were performed by (and subsequent fees collected by) the architect. That’s why your entry level PA pay blows. Reclaim the positions of owners reps and CMs. Stop racing to the bottom for fees. Learn to use excel and create budgets. If a union could tackle any of those (which I doubt) the profession as a whole would be in much better standing and may even see a reduction in the serious brain drain currently felt.
betonbrut
Sep 6, 18 4:26 pm
I couldn't agree with this more! The issue with the profession isn't employers taking advantage of their employees... which is largely what unionizing is to combat... It is a fundamentally failed business model by and large for the reasons you mention above.
newguy
Sep 6, 18 4:44 pm
Any "race toward the bottom" comes at the expense of the workers, though. Without upward pressure from a workforce demanding equitable benefits and pay, employers have no incentive to demand higher fees from their clients, which means that developers/land owners/rent-seekers and other owners of capital can force employers to negatively compete with one another for a job. This reduction of fee comes at the expense of the laborers within an organization who are then asked to provide more service (i.e, value) for less pay. Employers have no obligation to demand higher fee because an unorganized workforce beneath them absorbs the impact. This is the reality of all capitalist enterprises, and architecture is no different.
betonbrut
Sep 6, 18 5:35 pm
In general, yes, a race to the bottom comes at the expense of the workers... however, in a professional setting, it comes at the expense of everyone in the company, including owners. What you are really advocating for is a minimum wage so to speak for the profession. I don't see how that is even realistic.
newguy
Sep 6, 18 5:59 pm
I'm advocating for bottom-up bargaining on behalf of workers rights. What you are advocating for (benevolent owners acting on behalf of the firm) is the logic used by those who support trickle-down economics. I am simply acknowledging the conflict that exists in the workplace between owners and laborers. The economic interests of the workers do not align evenly with the economic interests of the owners
betonbrut
Sep 6, 18 6:12 pm
What other professional organization, aside from public school teachers, has a union? Unions in this country are almost exclusively reserved for labor. You are also assuming the owners of architecture firms are somehow getting rich off the backs of their employees. That has certainly not been my experience.
Everyday Architect
Sep 6, 18 6:40 pm
What other professional organization, aside from public school teachers, has a union? Unions in this country are almost exclusively reserved for labor.
Define professional organization. Define labor.
Firefighters, paramedics, registered nurses, government employees (federal, state, county, municipal), postal workers, actors, musicians, film and television writers, professional athletes (NFL players association, MLB players association, MLS players union), air traffic controllers, pilots, etc.
betonbrut
Sep 6, 18 10:35 pm
I think you can understand (with a little help from Wikipedia even) what 'labor' means in the context of the origins of unions in the US. I fail to see how those jobs or careers you mentioned above relate to the practice of architecture as it pertains to unionizing. Why don’t doctors and lawyers unionize? My original point is that I don't see how the current state of the Architectural profession in the US would ever be able to unionize and further, I don't see how that would bring wages up as you are suggesting.
This is not to say that I am personally anti-union. I love unions and think they play a vital role in the US economy; mainly the protection of employees as much as it is their compensation.
newguy
Sep 6, 18 11:03 pm
Just because you don't swing a hammer doesn't mean the output of your work isn't defined as labor. In basic economic terms, the workplace is broken into two groups:
1) Those who control the means of production (the bosses) 2) Those who rent out their labor (the workers)
The profits realized in any enterprise (architecture included) is the value that is created by the workers. Any surplus is value created does not necessarily go to the worker, but to the bosses, who then get to decide how much (if any) to distribute back down to the workers. Any increase in worker productivity, which in our industry usually manifests itself as more work done in a tight deadline (i.e, those all-nighters we all know and love) is best understood as added value that is created by the workers, even though their salaries are often fixed.
Everyday Architect
Sep 7, 18 12:35 pm
beton, I'm not understanding your point. You asked about other professional organizations that have unionized aside from teachers (implication was current unions), but then you complain that those careers and professions don't relate to architecture and the origins (historically) of unions in the US has been around labor. First, is your argument about the historical origins of unions, or about current unions? Second, are there certain career characteristics that you view as necessary for any comparison to architecture (ie. tight deadlines, long hours, creative process, unique product rather than mass-produced, licensure required, etc.)? Earlier you offered two qualifications 1) professional organization and 2) not labor. I think I offered plenty of examples that work for those, so you'll need to clarify or give a more detailed rebuttal.
I'm not sure if I would be pro- or anti-union at this point (can I be union apathetic?), I'm just trying to understand what point you're trying to make here.
betonbrut
Sep 7, 18 12:41 pm
The business model of architecture is flawed. Unionizing the labor won't fix that.
Everyday Architect
Sep 7, 18 1:00 pm
It actually might if collective labor demands would force systemic change in order for the business model to still be profitable. If not, then unionizing certainly wouldn't hurt the current business model.
Flatfish
Sep 6, 18 3:58 pm
I don't know. My experience with unions is all from teaching, and there the unions ensure a lot of good conditions and protections, and it's definitely worth the less than one percent of my teaching salaries that I pay in dues, and those hundreds of dollars in annual dues are not a hardship and more than pay for themselves in negotiated benefits. BUT: sometimes there are unintended losses in flexibility/creativity of working situations built into the union-negotiated agreements. The intentions are good, but for instance I can't choose to teach more credits per semester than the collective bargaining agreements allow, or as a lecturer I can't opt to take on additional duties (even well-compensated duties) that are supposed to be assigned to tenured staff, or I can't be a temporary adjunct for more than two semesters even if I want to be (because it allows more flexibility of my schedule), etc. I would be concerned that an architecture union might result in some similar inadvertent limitations, that are results of well-intended protections for most architects, but can have the end results of defining all architects' roles for them in ways that might not best fit every architect.
citizen
Sep 7, 18 7:50 pm
Very good points.
archi_dude
Sep 6, 18 11:52 pm
In my experience, it didn’t seem like principals really made that much money. Even if you made it so they were only making about 10% more than PM’s and all that money was spread out between the “workers” everyone would get maybe...$900 or so more a year? And if there’s shareholders getting a meager payout after years of service, never sounded like that was much of a stash to raid either...
Steeplechase
Sep 7, 18 12:34 am
But Marx says you’re being exploited!
newguy
Sep 7, 18 1:09 am
The majority of exploitation in the architecture industry comes in the form of time. There's also the issue of underpaid (or un-paid) internships, as well as competition work that is given away for free. Working 60+ hours a week is the same as wage suppression, because you are being asked to increase your output without a corresponding increase in compensation. This allows clients (developers / landowners / literal capitalists) to undercut the value of our service, because without organized labor agitating for workers concerns, they can demand more production without increasing pay. I mean, think about it. How many architectural employees work long hours designing luxury housing projects that they can never afford to live in? They are essentially being poorly paid to increase the value of land that they are being priced out of.
Steeplechase
Sep 7, 18 9:12 am
Don’t be stupid and work for free.
Non Sequitur
Sep 7, 18 9:23 am
newguy... you're on a dangerous balkins level path of ridicule here. How long have you been out in the working world?
archi_dude
Sep 7, 18 11:31 am
New guy, 1) No one is forcing you to work in a place like that. I averaged 42-45hr weeks and remained on the high side of the compensation curve. 2) The reason the fees are so low is because most clients just want plans and permits to build but many architects make an exorbitant amount of extra work for themselves modeling the surrounding neighborhood in sketchup for rendering or using sketchup up to DD then remaking everything in Revit for CD’s ect. Ect. The fees make sense it’s the firms with broken business models that don’t. Also for a union to be successful you need to be necessary and control output on something, Long Beach longshoreman are a great example. Architects that create art and ignore CA, not that valuable.
newguy
Sep 7, 18 2:36 pm
Steeple, wonderful advice. I'll store that bit of lovely insight right next to my bootstraps and rugged individualism, thank you. Archi_dude, if your firm is rendering services (such as 3D modeling context) and not collecting fee on it, then that means that there are people in your office being asked to work on something without compensation. But for the record, I've never worked in an office that doesn't model context. It's an essential part of the design process. Your suggestion that we cut down these steps for efficiencies sake undermines the value of design, which is the very service that we provide. We don't just arrive at a final set of drawings, we work up to them. And how do we not control output? The buildings we design are what generates the vast amounts of wealth for the owners of those buildings in the first place. The buildings we design are the vehicles that are used to collect the rents of tenants and/or the extraction of labor from employees. Without those buildings, that wealth cannot be generated/extracted/funneled upward. The real obstacle we face is not one of controlling output, it's one of building solidarity.
archi_dude
Sep 7, 18 4:17 pm
90% of Clients want permits and coordinated drawings sets. They don’t care about arriving at a genious design. How would striking on a service that no one
cares about have an effect?
Non Sequitur
Sep 7, 18 4:25 pm
"buildings we design are what generates the vast amounts of wealth" Really? Well... if you're so damn certain that your killer design skills are magical goldmines, why not set up your own shop and charge what you think you're worth? Nothing's stopping you.
newguy
Sep 7, 18 4:34 pm
archi_, they don't want "coordinated drawing sets." They want a functional building that gives them guaranteed long term recurring profit in the form of equity/rent that they can extract from their tenants. The property they own begins generating value once a building is placed on it and they can charge tenants to use the space. If there is no building on the property, then that property doesn't generate the wealth they desire
Non Sequitur
Sep 7, 18 4:37 pm
and you can guarantee that wealth?I think the owner/client, in your very specific example, also plays a role there. It's almost like you've never worked in the field before.
Miles Jaffe
Sep 7, 18 5:10 pm
In general the point is correct. Rent extraction (in every conceivable form) is the
foundation of capitalism.
archinine
Sep 7, 18 10:30 pm
New guy has completely missed the point. As others have noted it is the business model that has failed / eroded. Unionizing won’t help anyone squeeze water from a rock.
I’ve seen plenty of firm owners, principals etc working tedious hours of overtime right along side junior staff. Sometimes said owners even kick the younger ones out, feeling as though by being the owner, the buck stops with them and they ought to be the last ones out. Of course not every owner is that way, but don’t kid yourself into thinking that principal architects are raking it in because they aren’t.
Check the AIA salary calculator or Glassdoor at various large firms to see owner/principal pay. Compare those salaries to the higher ups at the big owners rep and project management firms. Even if it’s only a 5-10% difference, multiple that over the lifetime of a career and add in all the unpaid overtime, abysmal benefits packages, lack of bonuses etc, and you’ll start to understand why the brain drain continues.
Always follow the money, that’s usually where the answer is.
newguy
Sep 14, 18 6:36 pm
New guy has completely missed the point. As others have noted it is the business model that has failed / eroded. Unionizing won’t help anyone squeeze water from a rock....Always follow the money, that’s usually where the answer is.
Your point seems to be that the money supply only comes from Principles or firm owners, and that is only a part of the equation. Owners of firms are competing for work from a class of land-owners, speculators, and developers who have no incentive to pay more fee if they don't have to, because that would dip into their profit models. Well, if the owners of a firm cannot demand more fee, they will simply adjust by asking their employees to render more services for free. Some of the more generous owners may even pick up some of this work themselves so as to not push this burden down on their workforce (although I think this habit varies wildly from person to person more so than office to office. I've personally experienced both types). Regardless, the end result is that a pool of architectural designers in any given office is asked to output more work in the week than they are contracted for. User "archi_dude" above indicated that he only averaged 42-45 hours a week as if that is some sort of personal accomplishment. So let's use his example and do the math:
1) By his own admission, he is working around 100-260 hours a year for free. Multiply that by his hourly rate, and that is how much of his free labor his firm is offering their clients.
2) Now let's assume that his entire office is structured that way (and that his underlings aren't picking up the extra hours necessary to complete any given job). In an office of 10-20 people, that is roughly 1,000-5,200 hours of work that are given away every year for free. Multiply that by the average billing rate per staff member, and you can see just how much money is being gifted to developers.
3) Now let's multiply these numbers across the entire industry, and you can begin to imagine just how much architects on the whole are being played like chumps.
So who eats this massive discount that is just given away year after year after year? Is it the clients, developers, and land owners who force architecture firms to negatively compete and underbid one another? Is it the firm owners who have the means of controlling their staff size if and when work dries up? Or is it the employees who are working
hours without compensation, effectively reducing their wages and living precariously in fluctuating markets completely at the mercy of capitalist land owners?
You tell me that the business model has eroded. So tell me. Cui bono?
archi_dude
Sep 14, 18 9:19 pm
Well I only averaged those extra hours at a firm where there was a generous bonus package directly tied to keeping the firm lean and mean. The last firm I worked straight 40 hours but the work was boring and the pay was crap to compensate for the culture of giving nothing more than average. Since we are in a free capitalistic society, I was able to freely switch jobs to something that once again, has some fast paced deadlines with expected overtime but ownership rewards it with some SERIOUS bonuses and salary bumps. So basically I still don’t work that outrageous hours but I’m compensated for it. I’d rather just stand up for myself and get a good job then sit back whine and try to bring everyone down to my lame level with a Union. But I get what your saying about pushing back on the evil landowners. That would be BA, however, Globalism. I would fear most production jobs would be outsourced. Same situation the McDonalds workers found themselves in when LA implemented 15$/hr. The self serve kiosks moved in.
I'm Gregory and have Bachelors Degree in Architecture from FIU. I have 10 years of experience with autocadd, and I am up to date with autocadd Release 2021. I started out with autocadd release 1.2 in 1983.
I've learned BIM / Revit which is very important to this profession, and it doesn't help me one bit since most Architects today cannot operate this new technology or don't see any advantage to this new software. They will use students for this technology and then lay them all off once the work slows down within a year.
Maybe its time for mandatory training by a union of architects to keep a safe (UN-stale) working environment. Most the Architects / owners today are keeping only 10% of their upper staff, and treat the rest of their employees like cattle and lay them off without notice. This is why I've chosen not to become a licensed Architect and don't want to be apart of this stale profession.
Although, I do still want, and need to work, and I liked what I learned in school, but no one will hire me here in Miami Florida. Also, I may have to move from here since Miami is now like a foreign country.
Employers here don't admit it, but they will not hire English only speaking Americans if they speak Spanish. It should be illegal for employers to discriminate, and layoff their employees without any notice and no severance pay.
What else can I say but that something has to happen, and what goes around surely will come back around in the end.
Non Sequitur
Mar 26, 20 12:41 pm
Yeah, that's not how things work, but you're free to believe that.
tduds
Mar 26, 20 12:53 pm
I'm not saying your experience is not true, but I will say that it's far from typical.
SneakyPete
Mar 27, 20 11:52 am
2020-1983 = 37
37-10 = 27
What were ya doin' the other 27 years?
revolutionary poet
Mar 26, 20 7:43 pm
we should Unionize and then all quit at the same time.
tduds
Mar 27, 20 11:25 am
That's called a "strike"
Volunteer
Mar 27, 20 1:35 pm
Basically architecture is a guild, but the default heads of the guild, the AIA, NCARB, and NAAB have not been successful at all in limiting the number of practitioners. Indeed the more schools that need certification the more money the NAAB rakes in, the more architects in training and graduated and certified the more money the NCARB brings in, and the AIA tries to present itself as crucial, so send in those checks.
A second fault is that architects are untrained in the kind of architecture the educated public demands. Todays architects trypicaly have no clue as to architecture pre-Bauhaus. FLW's Prarie Style and mid-Century modern were popular but post-Modernism, Brutalism, Deconstructivism, and Parametricism only induced horror in the educated populace.
tduds
Mar 27, 20 1:55 pm
We thought ourselves artists, not artisans, and made the grave error of following the arc of the arts, not the builders. It mostly worked until Postmodernism. Irony doesn't work well in buildings.
Everyday Architect
Dec 22, 21 12:11 pm
Bumping this in light of the news coming out about workers at SHoP attempting to unionize.
I don't think the intent is to simply drop work and go home after 40 hours. Rather, overtime would 1) be used more wisely by management and 2) compensated in some way. The NYT article indicates that the union backers hope to negotiate additional time off for overtime worked.
"Union backers at SHoP said they hoped to negotiate policies that might, for example, give workers an hour off after every two hours of overtime. (SHoP currently provides some compensatory time off, but employees say the amounts are small and inconsistent.)
"This would require principals and managers to use overtime more judiciously. SHoP employees said principals often wanted several renderings when a few would suffice, or drawings that lay beyond the scope of their contract — like a landscape."
natematt
Dec 22, 21 2:57 pm
The reality is that even within our industry the conditions vary wildly between firms. In particular, a lot of the "star" firms are much worse working environments. I am curious how much of a comparative benefit people in corporate firms, for example, would get out of unionizing. I also wonder if it would be more beneficial to the industry if people just started quitting the shitty behaving star firms in mass. Like, why don't all these people at shop who are unionizing, just quit and go somewhere they are treated better, I'm sure a lot of firms would be glad to hire them right now with better pay, and hours, and time off. This would also show firms that they can't just shit on their employees.
shellarchitect
Dec 22, 21 2:17 pm
looks like some people were really working crazy unpaid overtime at shop. Really not sure why they were putting up with that in the first place.
x-jla
Dec 22, 21 2:24 pm
I’m all for Unions so long as joining is voluntary. I think unions in design professions can certainly create positive changes. I also think those changes would not only be positive for the workers, but for the profession as a whole. It’s often the clients that impose the harsh deadlines and tight fees. Unions act as a backbone to firms that may suffer from a lack of one, and will ultimately result in a profession that can better balance between profits, lifestyle, and client demands.
RJ87
Dec 22, 21 3:00 pm
"Firms that specialize in customized designs, like SHoP, regularly spend weeks generating proposals for the competitions through which clients award contracts, and for which the firms receive little or no pay. And many firms propose fees that are too low to support adequate staffing, several experts in the field said.
“People lower their fees, and once you lower your fees — I don’t know if it’s a slippery slope, but it’s definitely a slope,” said Andrew Bernheimer, the principal at Bernheimer Architecture and an associate professor at the Parsons School of Design in New York.
Architects at SHoP and other firms said their employers typically resolved this contradiction through vast quantities of unpaid overtime."
There it is, that's the problem right there. It's a poorly run business. Do your best not to work for a poorly run business, simple as that.
RJ87
Dec 22, 21 3:07 pm
That goes for any office that requires a large amount of unpaid OT, it's a poor business model.
natematt
Dec 22, 21 3:19 pm
Would this all even be a conversation if firms just paid overtime?
Everyday Architect
Dec 23, 21 12:27 pm
I think it would. The firm I did the most overtime in was also the only firm that actually paid me for it. There were plenty of issues related to that aside from simply comply with labor laws and paying me for the work. If I was still working there, I'd still be wanting to have this conversation ... probably more so. All of this still relates to poorly run businesses. That firm is a good example of one that is still poorly run while still paying for OT.
Appleseed
Dec 22, 21 3:28 pm
Unless there's been a major re-organization, I was under the impression that SHoP was employee-owned - and therefore one of the last places that would have these kinds of issues and/or need to unionize...
Everyday Architect
Dec 22, 21 4:06 pm
From the NYT article: "The firm also said it had become 100 percent employee-owned this year, but equity shares have yet to be allocated and employees were skeptical that they would have much additional say in how the firm was managed."
Appleseed
Dec 22, 21 5:33 pm
Thanks for the c/p EA; just remembering that Gregg talked about the 'employee-owned' thing a number of years ago. Opting to do speculative work is always going to be a choice. Buying into a firm (or working for equity - I forget how it actually works w/ SHoP) and participating under a contract that doesn't offer paid overtime, would also be a choice. If enough employee-owners take issue w/ the practice, it seems like there would be avenues to resolve that don't require unionization...just strikes me as odd that of all places, SHoP is embroiled in this issue.
Gregory Walker
Dec 22, 21 8:53 pm
Appleseed - my question is the timing: if they haven't laid out how the shares are going to be distributed, is the union (who may or may not include people in management or some level of larger equity ownership) a way to try and gain a bigger block of votes/power internally, to have a more meaningful say? Not assigning a good/bad value judgement to that thought - it does strike me as odd given they are employee owned.
Gregory Walker
Dec 22, 21 9:36 pm
I was asked to elaborate on why I don't think unionization will solve the question of overtime/pay (for most individuals). The 2 minute version:
1 - There is zero percent chance unionization will come to pass in any 'red' states. Zero. Will firms in those states pay the same union labor rates? My experience with the construction industry here says no. Someone will always do it for less.
2 - The article in the Times focuses on competitions or extra-contractual examples where firms are not being paid and making a direct correlation as to overtime and, more tangentially, lower wages. Our firm does not do the kinds of competitions that SHOP does but that doesn't eliminate our need to market. Even a standard RFP response/second response/interview process is going to eat up 200 hours + of time to prepare something that will win. This is on top of the time for upper level staff and owners to go out and do in-person marketing. All of this is - the competitions, RFP's, client visits, sponsorships, etc. - all of it is overhead. Every services firm does marketing that's pure overhead. Pro-bono work? The 1% program? All overhead. Now, we can argue that the ratio of non-billable work to billable work is out of whack in some firms - certainly could be true. And that, smaller "design" firms trying to break into the bigs with no real billable work coming in are doing it on the backs of cheap/free labor. But that's not even close to the majority of us out there.
3 - Let's say that a union gets everyone "x" level of additional benefits/compensation and cuts their overtime to zero. Unless the assumption is that every firm owner is making 500k a year off the backs of their employees, where is that extra income going to materialize from? The article suggests the union organizers believe they can use unions to help lobby governmental agencies for higher fees. Good luck with that. See item 1 above.
4 - The real crux of our problem, overall, is we're still living with fee schedules that basically stopped in the 1970's, while having to deal with 30x more complicated buildings, codes, infrastructure, etc. Don't believe me? State of Alabama publishes the fee schedule they can LEGALLY use to bind firms upfront for fees. See many past 8%? GSA? Caps basic fees at 6%. You better believe every non-governmental entity knows what those ranges are. Some will go higher of course - lab projects and hospitals can routinely get 12% fees. High end residential? 15%+ easily.
4a - Yes, consultants are taking more and more of the total AE fee. But, as noted in some of the forums above, so are the other consultants an owner hires directly. Are owners going to routinely pay 20-25% fees to an A/E team? Ummm... no. Not for what 70-80% of us work on. For the whole project team (a PM, CM pre-con, AE, etc)? No. So.... how are we going to raise wages without an increase in pay? That leads us to...
5 - What is our scope of work, liability exposure, and time commitment contractually and does it align with doing amazing 'one off' architecture? No. Bang out that same Wal-Mart over and over? It probably is a lot easier, but frankly, Wal-Mart knows that and you're probably not making the same as a lab.
6 - Last thought: one of the big shifts that started in the late 70's - maybe coincidently with the fee schedules being outlawed - is that firms gradually phased out true 'drafters"- who may have had an AA or even high school level training but did the bulk of the drafting work - in favor of having degree students perform more of that work. You can see why - a more educated eye, someone who knew more about design... Schools responded by cranking out more fresh graduates, who went off and ultimately replaced that more in-expensive (over the long run) labor pool. What never happened correspondingly was a way to ramp up their pay and instead it equalized out to what the drafter was making. IDP cemented this dysfunctional relationship by making it impossible to get licensed without the experience. Throw on the kerosene of schools focusing less on "practical" training (or at the very least what that drafter would have gotten at the local vo-tech) in favor of a highly artistic bent and you have the perfect 40 year (and counting) inferno.
This list isn't exclusive. But a union isn't going to fix any of them.
b3tadine[sutures]
Dec 23, 21 10:48 am
Question, why are you deliberately leaving out the obvious? This is about exploitative work practices, unremunerative labor, no matter if it's overhead, is still problematic. I think most people would be satisfied with a salary commensurate with their labor, and to not get paid for their labor, because of all the things you cited above, is not a reason to exploit, and you almost certainly are apologizing for the practice of that exploitation.
Everyday Architect
Dec 23, 21 12:20 pm
Thank you for taking my invitation to elaborate. I do appreciate your opinion as it relates to all this because you do come at it from a different perspective than most of us and I think it's important to understand and see the issue from multiple perspectives.
That being said, I'm disappointed that you're still framing this personally and limiting yourself to seeing things based on your practice and markets rather than something more broad and holistic. You've touched on some broader points, but still use your limited and focused experience to dismiss them. I don't say that to mean that you don't have sufficient experience or that I somehow have more ... I don't, and I think you have plenty of experience to base your opinions on, but it seems limited to your practice and region as you draw upon it to dismiss points that you framed as broader.
I'd agree with you that you've identified issues in the profession. Yet, you haven't offered any substantive argument for what will change the issues you've identified. Instead, you've simply opined that unionization will not solve it based on what essentially amounts to thought-terminating clichés; "Someone will always do it for less," "But that's not even close to the majority of us out there," "Good luck with that," "So.... how are we going to raise wages without an increase in pay?"
You stated in your comment in the news article where I invited you to elaborate that "broad scale unionization will not solve the issues most people want solved (pay and overtime)." You made it sound like you had some thoughts on solving it, or at least speaking about it more broadly. It appears I was mistaken with my interpretation of your comment. That's fine. It's also fine if you don't have any ideas on solving the issues facing the practice. But if that's the case, it seems like a failure of your running a business if you plan to continue with the business as things around are looking for change and I'd argue some of the issues you identify are not sustainable and change is necessary for long-term viability of the profession.
Will unionization solve these issues? I don't know. But if the best the business owners can say is "No, and we don't have any other ideas," then I'm going to side with the ones pushing for something different. You've acknowledged there are problems. Maintaining the status quo isn't likely to solve them as it led to them. It sounds like you want to simply maintain the status quo. If not, please let us know what you think will solve the issues you bring up.
x-jla
Dec 23, 21 12:45 pm
The “drafters” point is very true. It’s a symptom of a broader trend away from more vocational training. This is a huge problem in many fields. You end up with a surplus of overqualified indebted grads and a scarcity of well trained technicians.
x-jla
Dec 23, 21 12:48 pm
The med field has done a good job of creating more specialized technical training. The difference I guess is that these technical areas, like radiology, mri techs, PAs, RN, Etc are very well paid.
Everyday Architect
Dec 23, 21 1:07 pm
The "drafters" point is one that I keep coming back to as I've thought about this over the years. I actually think unionizing might help to bring this back, but it depends on how they are organized and what they negotiate. At least that's my quick take. I'll try to elaborate more when I have more time.
x-jla
Dec 23, 21 4:09 pm
My hunch is that you are right about unions helping this.
Gregory Walker
Dec 23, 21 6:57 pm
beta - i'm not trying to duck it. there are remedies, under the law, for exploiting workers. will a union help with that? possibly. but it won't eliminate the practice - what will are people walking away from what they think are abusive jobs (and really, that's what a free market is for, right?).
Gregory Walker
Dec 23, 21 6:58 pm
everyday - i've never claimed to have an answer - the issues outlined there aren't definitive and no single thing is causing the wage and overtime issues at some firms.
b3tadine[sutures]
Dec 23, 21 9:02 pm
Greg, you are being disengenuous, you know how hard those claims are to ajudicate? So, your suggestion is that the abused should just leave the abuser?
Gregory Walker
Dec 24, 21 10:19 am
beta - absolutely know how hard they are to tackle. and of course, i am in no way advocating for people to be abused. one thing that would help? if the brightest talent stopped working for firms that treat them like this and find the firms that DO actually provide good wages, working conditions, etc.... we'd be in a better place right there. this is the biggest employee driven market i've seen in my time practicing (as an employee or employer).
b3tadine[sutures]
Dec 24, 21 10:33 am
Greg, we're just talking past one another here. I'm suggesting that firms stop treating people like their "capital", or unlimited resources, and start to realize that workers are breakable. Not that workers should stop working for exploitive firms. Workers should demand that firms stop exploiting them.
proto
Dec 23, 21 12:51 pm
I’m not up on unions in general — what services industries have unions? [i’d say professional services, but that seems to not exist…just thinking about jobs where the skills, experience, personal input is the “service”, not food service ]
Teachers, …?
Electricians, plumbers, …?
Musicians, actors, movie production…?
b3tadine[sutures]
Dec 23, 21 12:57 pm
Auto workers, Truckers, warehouse workers, Hotel workers, meat workers, coal miners...
Everyday Architect
Dec 23, 21 1:02 pm
I (sort of) pulled together a list in response to a similar question above from betonbrut (SEP 6, 18 6:12 PM). Probably the most apparent would be actors, musicians, film and television writers, professional athletes, air traffic controllers, pilots, etc. I'd add teachers to the list as well, but that was a given per the question. They are all more or less regarded as providing professional services, but it might depend on how you want to define that terminology. I'm trying to stick to what you called out: skill, experience, personal input.
RJ87
Dec 23, 21 2:39 pm
I've never understood why professional sports lockouts work, barring maybe court of public opinion. There are 1,696 players on active NFL rosters. Do you realize how fast you could find 1,696 people ready to seize the opportunity to play?
There are only 450 NBA guys. You could find another 450 that would be entertaining enough to watch until the union bleeds out.
square.
Dec 23, 21 2:49 pm
do you watch sports? getting to the level of the highest professional players takes time... not to mention these people have a celebrity status in today's game. it's akin to saying you could simply replace actors in your favorite show, which is why the writer's strike worked.
people are also missing the point when bringing up large entities.. take a look at the recent starbucks case. the union there formed at one location in buffalo (20 something employees). so while there is a larger chain to contend against, the battle is still at a small, local level. same with amazon (who just settled with the NLRB because of union busting practices.. if anything the large corporation is harder to fight). the disparity in size has nothing to do with preventing unionization from happening other than convention, or what we are used to doing.
every employee at every company has the right to pursue unionization - it's just the old club in architecture that is preventing it in this case, and it's a clever tactic to claim "it can't be done."
Non Sequitur
Dec 23, 21 3:27 pm
Step aside Tom Brady, Balkins will take over the second half
Everyday Architect
Dec 23, 21 3:30 pm
Tell me Rick didn't read the article without telling me Rick didn't read the article.
b3tadine[sutures]
Dec 23, 21 3:45 pm
RJ87 I realize that I'm dating myself here, but have you ever watched scabs play football? It's fucking horrid. I'm for athletes and unions, I'm for unions in NCAA. They treat humans like chattel without unions.
x-jla
Dec 23, 21 4:10 pm
Unions are free
x-jla
Dec 23, 21 4:11 pm
Unions are a sign of the free market working. Anti union sentiment is a sign that businesses don’t really want free markets.
x-jla
Dec 23, 21 4:14 pm
They want enough freedom to prosper, but want to be insulated from the forces of liberty that compete with their prosperity. That’s not how this thing is supposed to work, and that’s why we have corporatism/fascism and not healthy free market capitalism in the US.
x-jla
Dec 23, 21 4:17 pm
We either need to empower workers through unionization, to preserve a balance, or accept our fate towards socialism. You can only squeeze people so far.
x-jla
Dec 23, 21 4:28 pm
As for athletes…good god…take a look at how boxers are treated.
b3tadine[sutures]
Dec 23, 21 5:47 pm
They're on the team, not hired from a list of jabronies from the paaaark.
RJ87
Jan 6, 22 5:35 pm
I wasn't saying that they quality of play would be as high. I'm just saying I'd still drink in a parking lot for 8 hours to watch my cities "jabronies from the paaaark" run into the other cities clearly inferior and cheating squad of jabronies.
For reference, I'm a big college sports fan but I rarely watch pro teams. So I'm quite literally used to / prefer to watch a lesser product than I could if I watched the NFL or MLB for instance. If they replaced every college football player with whatever kids they rounded up from the bars every weekend, I'd watch that too.
Everyday Architect
Dec 23, 21 3:52 pm
I remembered seeing a line item in the ILFI's Just label about whether or not the organization is "Union Friendly." It's there under the heading for Equity in the v1.0 labels, and looks like it was reframed as "Freedom of Association" in the v2.0 labels, still under the same heading.
There are a fair number of architecture firms represented under both versions. Each company/org represented in the database includes a dropbox link where company policies and statements are available for viewing. Look up your favorite firms to see what they indicate as supportive of worker's right to organize.
What is your opinion on this?wh
Sure, why not.
We already have enough money grubbing organizations siphoning off of our measly paychecks. Why suffer another?
Unions had their place, a long time ago. We don't have the conditions in this field that necessitated the creation of those unions.
Unions don't just fight to improve conditions. They also work to prevent erosion of these earned conditions.
Now tell me, have you ever seen conditions erode in this industry? There are some standard lousy work hours, chauvinistic environments, and shitty managers. But we're not talking about intolerable conditions here. We're talking about a few people being shitty people. And that is a constant. There are always shitty people. But I can't say I've ever seen an increase in shittiness. The fact that this is a featured comment illustrates a bit of disconnect with the industry and with the conditions that lead to unions in the first place. The two aren't even close.
People want to whine about long hours and hard work. I grew up on a farm. You worked seven days a week. You don't take long vacations, unless there is someone else who can fill in for you, because the animals can't go that long without you. You're a slave to the job, for low levels of pay, relative to the retail cost of the product.
Farmers are just one example. There are soo many more. The whining in this industry is laughable and pathetic at times. Sure, I join in, but it's mostly to poke fun at myself for having joined the industry.
Architects need to stop whining! See Senjohnblutarsky's comment as a prime example! Until our industry can't get by without illegal labor and $12 billion in govt handouts, clearly our conditions can erode much further. Come back to the forums and complain when you're paid 0.50 per detail on the sheet and have to cover your own healthcare and NO VACATIONS.
Thank you John for setting us straight.
And yet another disconnect. This idea that every farm runs on illegal labor and handouts is ridiculous. People really don't have a damn clue where the food comes from, or how it's generated. Sure, produce farms are capitalizing on that sort of labor, but I specifically mentioned animals. Very different beast.
I grew up on a farm. We had a saying, "a bad day on the farm is still better than a good day in the office." :)
Food comes from factory farms.
Sneaky is on to something here... Most of the agriculture in the us is from large corporate farms that gobble up the soil and our water and ship their products to china. And then the farmers lobby makes everyone feel sorry for the family farm and they get $20 billion a year in subsidies with an additional $12 billion from the current administration. Supposedly the farm lobby is the most organized in washington. go start an arch lobby instead... seems more lucrative.
Farmers should unionize.
What conditions do you think lead to a union? Better yet, what do you think a union is? What is its purpose? Finally, what organizations do you belong to that are siphoning off your hard earned money? Why participate in those organizations if they are wasted funds?
No way!
Unionized worker get health care, retirement, vacation days, overtime, mandatory raises, workplace protections, workman's compensation, etc.
I want maximum profit on underpaid outsourced labor. Do you know how much it costs to maintain a Gulfstream G650?!
isn't the AIA an architects' union? being worthless is another issue
The AIA. lolol
I'm always pro-union.
It wouldn't take much to reform the AIA into a more union-like advocate.
Conceivably it wouldn't take much, except that you'd have to replace all the current leaders who mostly make up Firm owners who directly compete with a unionized workforce.
Right, first step is re-framing AIA from being an advocate for architects (assuming clients as the other party) to an advocate for workers (assuming ownership as the other party).
When I work at architecture offices in NL I know my minimum base salary, don't need to arrange retirement, get my automatic raises and lots of paid holidays, it's horrible!
Are you a partner at the firm? Or are you simply an architect for NL? How much profit is NL making from your hard work and dedication? a
teamsters United BIM workers union - maybe in New Jersey - never in Ca
YES! Definitely Unionize! I wouldn't mind volunteering my time to start this.
There is an organization trying to be the union for architects. See Architecture Lobby.
http://architecture-lobby.org/
Metropolis: The Architecture Lobby Stages a Radical Alternative to the AIA Conference on Architecture
Nope. 100% against architect unions. Just what we need, some bully lobby group keeping the bottom feeders employed.
And doing their best to make sure non-union people aren't employed.
Sounds a lot like many Architects without a union.
Unionize against who? Firm principals? The general public? I don't see either putting up with it for more than 30 seconds...
You don't unionise against something or someone but FOR something, you've got it all wrong!
You don't understand how unions work. Unions are not about sit ins and protest marches, they are about getting concessions from management. What I'm asking is, who exactly will an architect union expect to grant them concessions?
It's simple, change laws so that architects get overtime. How's that for a start? Force that number on the client and home owners. If your clients don't have the money, push that on the insurance company. What is home insurance for? Has anyone here who owns a home actually flled a claim? They tell you no, architects are not covered.
You think that will encourage more people to hire architects?
I know exactly what unions are for, don't need to lecture me about the workings and advantages of those ;) living in a social democracy here in the Netherlands. We actually have a union of architects, they negotiate our base salary for example, our generous paid holidays, make sure we have a pension plan, and promotes architecture in general, lobbies with government etc...so what do you need to know about a union for architects xian, I'm sure I can enlighten you :)
I'll ask you again, who is this union negotiating with? Are you sure it's even a union? Here in the states, architects find their own clients and negotiate their own fees. All a union is going to do here is discourage people from hiring architects since they will have to mess with union demands every time.
i'm guessing the idea would be employees have collective bargaining with owners/management. someone who owns a framing or roofing company probably isn't a millionaire either. collective bargaining may be able to help architects, especially younger ones, negotiate better terms the same way it helps a framer. for us, this might include money but also possibly better exposure or experience like site visits or something like that.
"I'll ask you again, who is this union negotiating with? Are you sure it's even a union? Here in the states, architects find their own clients and negotiate their own fees. All a union is going to do here is discourage people from hiring architects since they will have to mess with union demands every time."
I'm talking about salaries and working conditions (holidays/pension) for their employees, not negotiating fees with their clients. I think your idea of unions is a bit distorted by The Sopranos or something :)
How will a Union work for the very small firms in the US? will this make it difficult for those small firms to compete with the big corporate firms? Will we limit unions to firms over 12 people?
The demands they list?
Lowering the standards and experience for getting a license while increasing the costs for services. Sounds like a recipe to be even more avoided on projects than architects already are.
Looking for alternatives to privately funded projects yet charging based on value added? So creating a communal based project but charging in a very capitalistic way?
Sounds awesome but lots of holes in implementation. Maybe just take back the CM process?
if that happens, I can assure you, even more production work would just be outsourced to China, India, Argentina and Mexico - too much is already being outsourced let alone make it worse
have you ever heard of a professional union? seriously, that's what the "associations" are for; the fact they don't act in your behalf is half to blame on you.
If firms had to pay half of that they likely wouldn’t hire as much staff. Simple math. It’s not like the banking industry where the ceos are making hundreds of millions. Most of those at the top are broke as shit too.
You act like not hiring as much staff is a bad thing.
I'm for the benefits, but the unintended consequences would be Contractors and Developers using this as a wedge to lobby for lowering the legal requirements to become a designer of buildings. Red states would lead the charge, possibly with some bullshit "Licensed Building Designer" crap. We'd see a marked drop in requests for services. Perhaps, over time, there would be a rebalancing in which good design floats back to the top and be able to command a premium for "Architects" but in the meantime the opposite effect of the union's goals would be realized. Big companies would design buildings while paying the designers peanuts.
Th left two panels in the graphic are a contradiction yes?
It won't ever happen. Unionization only works when you have a very large number of worker bees performing easily definable tasks for a very small number of employers who themselves have high fixed costs and can't afford the downtime of a labor strike. That doesn't remotely describe this profession.
The only long term solution is to reduce the supply of architects. The only thing we as individuals can do toward that end is to spread the word to the little high school kiddies that this profession will break most of their hearts if they go into it.
I do my part when I can!
We can also keep the mandatory internships and exams to get licensed instead of watering them down and reducing the hours need to finish.
Wowza, some of the dumbest articles ever on the arch lobby site, and I'm normally pretty sympathetic to such things
.
(and just look at young Peter Eisenman and Michael Graves being scolded by Mother)
Have architecture schools a accredited by the ABET rather than the NAAB. That alone should close about half the schools. (Looking at you, Ivy League)
If the engineering schools can graduate a structural engineer in four years, architecture schools should be able to do the same with architects (see above)
S - - - can the NCARB. use whatever the engineering profession uses for their members to go from state to state.
Do away with the "master's program" for people with degrees in arcane subjects they thoughtlessly majored in (everybody makes mistakes!). If they want to be an architect have them go for the four-year BS degree with credit for their undergraduate degree courses where possible. Hopefully they can finish in three or less years - at normal undergraduate tuition levels, not the inflated graduate school rates.
The Master's program should be reserved for people with at least five years of work experience.
You're welcome.
That's ... very reasonable actually.
At the heart of what you're getting at (I think) is the over-supply in the US being the main problem. CAN / UK / AUS have much stricter quotas with smaller class sizes and fewer schools in the architecture programs. They also have a more robust side-system for 2-year drafting/technical programs, which occupy a very necessary place in the profession.
but then you would have to admit that what we are currently doing is silly and that is NEVER going to happen
I dont think thats it at all tintt. Rather a raising-of-the-bar, albeit in a somewhat ruthless manner, with the aim of elevating quality in the profession across the board.
IF exams are the gatekeeper to HSW, then anyone who passes them should be competent, yes? And if NOT, revamp the exams. IF schooling is the gatekeeper to HSW, then there should be competent graduates from every accredited school. And if NOT, then why keep out those with less formal schooling than graduates?
What about an apprentice path to licensure? Used to be 12 years working for a licensed architect made you eligible to sit for exams.
there are multiple gates. the exam is only one of them.
Over supply? What a joke.
https://www.bak.de/w/files/bak...
curt, that's true, but the gates as they exist don't do the job they intend to, requiring employers to figure out the good from the bad. If the gates keep out people who have the drive but not the training yet the gates aren't functioning, leading to incompetent people getting through, then what is the point of the gates?
The gates are not designed to separate good and bad. They have an entirely different purpose.
That's kinda
what I'm getting at.
At the heart of what you're getting at (I think) is the over-supply in the US being the main problem. CAN / UK / AUS have much stricter quotas with smaller class sizes and fewer schools in the architecture programs. They also have a more robust side-system for 2-year drafting/technical programs, which occupy a very necessary place in the profession.
The US will enter a recession in 1 1/2 to 2 years from now, and a major culling is overdue
hopefully it's not a war
This topic has been discussed in some depth in a number of earlier threads:
How come we don't have an organized union ? (2005)
Architects - the worst paid job in the world (2007)
Union for architects (2008)
Workers union (2010)
Architect's union (2011)
There's some pretty good stuff on the subject in each of these threads.
Oh … by the way … there once was a union in the US that attempted to represent the interests of architects … FAECT … see link below:
Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists, and Technicians
If this group wanted to have some fun they could have a mock funeral of the AIA in Washington DC. Before the graveside service a New Orleans jazz style funeral procession could make a few laps around AIA headquarters. Non band members could be carrying signs and wearing T-shirts (black) such as : "I gave Yale $200,000 and all I got was this T-shirt".
Group members could hold a contest for the AIA's epitaph as well: "We told you you were sick".
Brilliant.
yes!
unions are dead. No firm in its right mind would unionize. No individual either. Go ahead and form a union and get ready to never work in architecture again. Not to mention the architects union would only be for architects. Draftsmen would have their own union. I think on the trade side they actually are part of the operators union. So go approach them.
If unions are dead, they were murdered.
Nah... suicide.
Nah... Reagan.
+++ tduds
Lift a PBR... and remember those good ole canning lines while listening to the only version of this song worth listening too... https://youtu.be/vbddqXib814
It would work with a good Joe Pesci from goodfellas kinda leader...smack the shit out of some starchitects...”pay this intern a fair wage or in the fuckin pizza over you go!”
*oven
Ah hah, your so funny - "Funny? how am I funny?, funny like a clown?, am I here to amush you"
Labor Day 2018 bump.
The answer to this question should really only depend on your position.
Are you a worker/laborer? Then the answer is Yes.
Are you management/principal/ownership? Then the answer is No.
For whatever reason, architects view themselves as "professionals" and think that the conflict between management and labor does not apply to our profession even though it is conflict that exists in literally every industry in existence. Architects have such a terrible understanding of labor theory. The combined output of the production from the worker architects in any office is what creates the value for that firm. The owners, principals, and management all have a vested interested in keeping salaries for their employees as low as possible so that they can keep the surplus value generated by their labor force for themselves. This is true in every enterprise, and our industry is no different.
Oh, you think there is no hierarchy in your office? You think you and your boss are working toward the exact same goal? Try limiting your work-week to exactly 40 hours and refusing to meet unrealistic deadlines and see if you don't get a sit-down conversation with your manager about the meaning of "teamwork" and "professional expectations."
Not every office is structured in such a way. Mine is not. Also, I'd be the first to remove myself if ever there was a suggestion to unionized. My career growth is determined by my skill and experience alone and I will not see my personal efforts help those who care less.
The offices where I have worked, the sit-down conversations with junior staff are about too often exceeding 40 hours per week.
^10% OT is the norm here when work loads are heavy'ish. That's based on 37.5hr weeks.
Steeple,
That conversation actually falls in line with my observation. Because junior staff are paid hourly instead of being exempt, the conversation about "not exceeding 40 hours a week" to an hourly employee is about getting over 40 hours worth of work done for only 40 hours of pay.
Just move to an office where they cover your OT hours. Rather simple. Work 50hr weeks? Get paid for 50hrs. Kids these days, amiright?
new guy, nope, it’s about getting 40 hours of work done in 40 hours and trying to figure out why they are struggling.
No. If you are constantly having that conversation with younger staff, then it is your assumption of what can be done in 40 hours by junior staff that is incorrect, not their production. Afterall, they are junior staff, so their efficiency (or lack-thereof) is the justification for their lesser pay. So expecting them to have the same productive output as someone who makes more (and is therefore more proficient) cuts against the argument justifying their lower base salary to begin with.
Now, obviously, if they are posting all day on archinect rather than producing, then that is a separate issue. But if this is a trend that you see often enough to bring it up (as you just did), then the issue is more likely an issue of ownership wanting to squeeze more profit out of their workforce, which is an inherent property of all profit-seeking enterprises.
Who said anything about constant conversations? That is something you made up.
You said: "The offices where I have worked, the sit-down conversations with junior staff are about too often exceeding 40 hours per week."
The implication being that you've had this conversation multiple times with various staff members.
You’re still just making stuff up. I didn’t say I was doing anything nor do you know anything about staff sizes or frequency. One person amongst several isn’t a norm.
Perhaps you personally aren't the person having these conversations, that's probably true. And I'm sure there are poor performers as well, as there are in all offices across all industries. But that doesn't really take away from the point, now does it? The fundamental conflict between those who own production (capital) vs those who produce (labor) still exists. The details as they exist in your particular situation(s) is largely irrelevant when analyzing the competing goals between the bosses and the workforce, which is the only point I'm trying to make.
get ready to pay heavy union fees.
Why? What are you comparing this to?
You literally have no income. And all the fees you just described are typically paid by the firm, not the individual.
Now now Bench, collecting welfare is a form of income. is it not?
Now you mention that, I just realized that as a new American tax payer, I am literally sending money to this guy.
(*Disclaimer: Im actually a supporter of Scandinavian-style higher taxes for social services, including welfare, I just felt the need to get that shot in).
But you wouldn't know ?
Want to revise that post there Ricky? Sounds a little, je ne sais quoi...
you've talked to... but never worked a day in one. Great credentials you have there Ricky. Looks real good next to your sexist/racist remarks above.
Not touching this one. I'm out.
Rick most firms - at least most that regularly employ people, do pay all of those fees for their employees. Some require the employee to chip in some %, in order to have "skin in the game" - i.e. so they feel some responsibility for maintaining their credentials, actively participating in AIA, etc - but in those cases it's typically the employee paying 20 to 30 percent. Perhaps if you're talking about a sole proprietor who hires production help on a per-project basis or something then they may not offer that benefit - but anybody who wants to retain employees pretty much needs to pick up the tab for those benefits. I've never heard of a single firm paying memberships and fees for employees and then garnishing them from their paycheck. People on this forum who discuss the value of paying for dues and memberships are usually sole proprietors or firm owners.
Things like AIA memberships are as much, if not more, for the marketing purposes of the firm than they are for the benefit of the employee - and anyway, if the firm wants to maintain its status as an AIA member firm then it has to pay an annual fee for every architect it employs - and that fee is more than double for non AIA member architects, so there's some financial incentive to the firm for ensuring that all licensed staff are members. These are regular costs of employing professionals - the typical outlay of fees in my firm averages about $1100 per year per employee, for AIA, NCARB, LEED, and license renewals.
You need to actually work in some firms before you can tell anybody anything about working in firms. As for your welfare analysis: there is no federal program that determines eligibility that way, and in fact there are plenty of studies showing that white families benefit disproportionately from welfare. There are certain California-specific family programs with case load limits that do work that way - i.e. they prioritize certain demographics because they must satisfy diversity quotas - I think you may be confusing some facts, which is understandable since you were a young child at the time that you were living in CA.
Feel free to provide links to the source material Rick.
I haven't seen people post on this forum about employers who don't pay professional fees and dues. I've seen lots of people post about the cost of those things - but usually they're either a principal in a firm, or they're somebody who is a consultant or currently unemployed or something like that asking whether they should keep up those memberships and certifications on their own dime. I've never heard of firms paying things for employees and then taking it out of their pay - can you find any example of someone saying that's the practice in any architecture firm? Sure there are restaurant and gas station chains that charge their employees for things like uniforms and take those costs out of their checks, because the turnover is expected to be so quick that those employers feel it's not a good investment to provide them free, but that's not the mindset of most architecture firms or how they typically operate.
Ricky. Like always, you're speaking crazies. Come back to this nonsense once you've actually held a real job. Not going to bother helping you out here seeing as you're so far removed from reality.
Rick I'm a principal in my firm. We pay license dues for the states in which we regularly do work (though some staff do have licenses in other states where we do not ordinarily pursue projects, and they do pay those out of pocket if they wish to retain them), we also pay NCARB certification dues, AIA dues, LEED and CSI certification renewals, and we reimburse the fees for passed exams. These are pretty standard benefits - we're not unusual in covering them. We do not deduct any of these from salaries, and do not grab them back if the employee leaves the firm. Turnover in professional firms is not typically so quick that investing a few hundred dollars per year per employee is unreasonable, and all of those certifications and memberships are part of those employees' resumes so they're part of what gets us work. As many of us have told you numerous times: you would benefit from actually working in a firm. Imagine actually knowing what you're talking about! This is the best hiring climate in architecture in the last 20 years - why don't you get yourself a job somewhere and check out a firm from the inside?
Rick, does your local community college offer business courses? You might consider taking a few so you can get a better idea of how to be an employer. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter as you will probably never have an employee, and no one takes you seriously on the forum when to talk about being an employer.
Rick I thought I made this explicitly clear, but let me try again: we cover FOR ALL FULL TIME EMPLOYEES INCLUDING NEW HIRES AND ALL LEVELS OF PROFESSIONAL STAFF and pro-rated for part-timers: license dues for the states in which we regularly do work (though some staff do have licenses in other states where we do not ordinarily pursue projects, and they do pay those out of pocket if they wish to retain them), we also pay NCARB certification dues, AIA dues, LEED and CSI certification renewals, and we reimburse the fees for passed exams. These are pretty standard benefits - we're not unusual in covering them. Most firms of any size larger than a 1 or 2 person shop do offer this, or at least cover 70% of all of these things.
It was not my intent to turn this into yet another thread about the minutiae of your personal circumstances and why you can or cannot get a job. Do whatever you're going to do, or not. My primary point was: you're ludicrously off base with many of your assumptions about employment and practices in architecture firms, and you're doing a disservice to people who visit this firm for insight into the profession. It's irresponsible and immature - especially since you've been told how off base you are by so many of us so many times. EITHER get a job in a firm so you can talk about real life experience OR don't get a job in a firm, in which case STOP dispensing suppositions, generalizations and craziness.
NCARB's surveys always find that the % of firms that pay AIA dues and license upkeep are reported to be slightly lower by emerging professionals than by firm principals - but both are typically in the >60% range for all firms of all sizes, and >80% for medium and large firms. I disagree with Rick's assertion that it's not customary in most fields for employers to pay for professional licenses. There are debates about this in many professions, and not all employers do pay, but the majority do, and most business/employment authorities recommend that they do so, because any fees that are for upkeep of credentials or memberships that are customary in a profession ultimately benefit the company so the company should provide them. Besides, they're cheap benefits that are easy for the companies to provide and create good will and longer retention of employees, and they're tax deductions for the companies.
Per our tax accountant: professional dues are still deductible in the new tax code by employers as long as the membership can be shown to help the employee to carry out the duties of his job. That's an easy one with AIA and CSI, since membership provides access to industry-standard documents, as well as state-mandated continuing ed, etc.
And we do recognize all the others you've mentioned as tax deductible, except NCBDC perhaps (because it's considered a vanity credential with no professional value) - why would you think they aren't?
As others have requested: please don't post your assumptions as if they were fact. If you don't know it from first-hand experience don't post it at all.
Rick I don't have NCBDC certification, nor does anyone in our office or anyone I know, so I haven't investigated that one. If it pertains to you I'd suggest consulting your own tax person. LEED is legally required by the state and local governments for much of the work that my firm does, so there's no question that USGBC membership and LEED accreditation help in our jobs. CSI is the industry standard for specifications and document organization, and widely referenced by contract documents - so having that membership and CSI credentials is easily demonstrated as helpful. The tax code now allows deduction of memberships and credentials only if they help the employee in doing their job - and for all of the ones we're deducting it's easy for us to show that they do help in doing the job. If you can show that for NCBDC then great - I'm skeptical but not saying it's impossible. It's not one that I could see an architecture firm wanting to pay for, as it's viewed by most architects as a vanity thing for residential contractors. Most architecture firms probably wouldn't see any practical use in having their employees get that certification - but maybe if you were working for a residential contractor.
smh - only Rick could take a 7 word comment about paying union dues and make it into this massive inline thread that devolves based on him not having a job (or a clue) and ends up considering the (non)value of the NCBDC/CPBD and LEED for exempt projects.
https://i.giphy.com/media/l41l...
^EA, but think about it... if there would be a union, there is a chance it ends up supporting Balkins and others like him.
Rick: for the type and size of projects I do, in my state, LEED is in fact required by state statute. This is not an isolated situation - there are many project types in several states for which this is the case. Once again, your "as far as I recall" is not the same thing as first hand experience. As for your thoughts on union dues: first of all, you need to learn the difference between employer deductions and garnishments. Employers can never garnish for union dues. Garnishment requires a court order. Employers can only deduct for union dues if the employee authorizes that deduction, though in a non right-to-work state an employer can deduct union fees (not dues) from non-union members.
I would rather not tell you what I work on or where, so here is one from another state:
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 16a-38k: new state buildings of $5,000,000 or more, and renovations of state facilities in excess of $2,000,000, must meet or exceed a LEED silver rating or a two-globe rating under Green Globes. This has been amended several times since it was first adopted more than a decade ago, to now also include new school projects and several other types of projects and thresholds, and some requirements in excess of LEED Silver minimums.
I know of at least 5 other states with similar statutes. Some of them allow "equivalent" systems other than LEED, and some do not. In the case of the projects that I work on, LEED Silver or better is required by state statute.
I understand your thought train, but nonetheless LEED has been adopted by STATUTE for many types of projects in several states. Whether or not that should have happened is not the point. The fact is that it has happened, and is in those statutes, so if I work on those projects in those states then I need to know LEED, so LEED accreditation and USGBC membership are helpful for doing my job, so they are tax deductible. See? It's not that difficult. It shouldn't require all this arguing from you, about something that you don't know much about because you lack real world experience. I cited an example of a statute, and you're still arguing. I'm tired of this thread. Good night.
...
The problem isn’t architects as employers but architects as a group allowing the degrdation of scope of services and fees. Just consider how many various ‘consultants’ are present and collecting checks for any given project, all of whose tasks in another era were performed by (and subsequent fees collected by) the architect. That’s why your entry level PA pay blows. Reclaim the positions of owners reps and CMs. Stop racing to the bottom for fees. Learn to use excel and create budgets. If a union could tackle any of those (which I doubt) the profession as a whole would be in much better standing and may even see a reduction in the serious brain drain currently felt.
I couldn't agree with this more! The issue with the profession isn't employers taking advantage of their employees... which is largely what unionizing is to combat... It is a fundamentally failed business model by and large for the reasons you mention above.
Any "race toward the bottom" comes at the expense of the workers, though. Without upward pressure from a workforce demanding equitable benefits and pay, employers have no incentive to demand higher fees from their clients, which means that developers/land owners/rent-seekers and other owners of capital can force employers to negatively compete with one another for a job. This reduction of fee comes at the expense of the laborers within an organization who are then asked to provide more service (i.e, value) for less pay. Employers have no obligation to demand higher fee because an unorganized workforce beneath them absorbs the impact. This is the reality of all capitalist enterprises, and architecture is no different.
In general, yes, a race to the bottom comes at the expense of the workers... however, in a professional setting, it comes at the expense of everyone in the company, including owners. What you are really advocating for is a minimum wage so to speak for the profession. I don't see how that is even realistic.
I'm advocating for bottom-up bargaining on behalf of workers rights. What you are advocating for (benevolent owners acting on behalf of the firm) is the logic used by those who support trickle-down economics. I am simply acknowledging the conflict that exists in the workplace between owners and laborers. The economic interests of the workers do not align evenly with the economic interests of the owners
What other professional organization, aside from public school teachers, has a union? Unions in this country are almost exclusively reserved for labor. You are also assuming the owners of architecture firms are somehow getting rich off the backs of their employees. That has certainly not been my experience.
What other professional organization, aside from public school teachers, has a union? Unions in this country are almost exclusively reserved for labor.
Define professional organization. Define labor.
Firefighters, paramedics, registered nurses, government employees (federal, state, county, municipal), postal workers, actors, musicians, film and television writers, professional athletes (NFL players association, MLB players association, MLS players union), air traffic controllers, pilots, etc.
I think you can understand (with a little help from Wikipedia even) what 'labor' means in the context of the origins of unions in the US. I fail to see how those jobs or careers you mentioned above relate to the practice of architecture as it pertains to unionizing. Why don’t doctors and lawyers unionize? My original point is that I don't see how the current state of the Architectural profession in the US would ever be able to unionize and further, I don't see how that would bring wages up as you are suggesting. This is not to say that I am personally anti-union. I love unions and think they play a vital role in the US economy; mainly the protection of employees as much as it is their compensation.
Just because you don't swing a hammer doesn't mean the output of your work isn't defined as labor. In basic economic terms, the workplace is broken into two groups:
1) Those who control the means of production (the bosses)
2) Those who rent out their labor (the workers)
The profits realized in any enterprise (architecture included) is the value that is created by the workers. Any surplus is value created does not necessarily go to the worker, but to the bosses, who then get to decide how much (if any) to distribute back down to the workers. Any increase in worker productivity, which in our industry usually manifests itself as more work done in a tight deadline (i.e, those all-nighters we all know and love) is best understood as added value that is created by the workers, even though their salaries are often fixed.
beton, I'm not understanding your point. You asked about other professional organizations that have unionized aside from teachers (implication was current unions), but then you complain that those careers and professions don't relate to architecture and the origins (historically) of unions in the US has been around labor. First, is your argument about the historical origins of unions, or about current unions? Second, are there certain career characteristics that you view as necessary for any comparison to architecture (ie. tight deadlines, long hours, creative process, unique product rather than mass-produced, licensure required, etc.)? Earlier you offered two qualifications 1) professional organization and 2) not labor. I think I offered plenty of examples that work for those, so you'll need to clarify or give a more detailed rebuttal.
To your other question, lawyers have certainly entertained the idea of unionizing, and it has been discussed with regards to doctors as well. Your guess would be as good as mine as to why they haven't unionized. It think the articles I linked offer some explanations, but they don't definitively state it shouldn't or couldn't happen.
I'm not sure if I would be pro- or anti-union at this point (can I be union apathetic?), I'm just trying to understand what point you're trying to make here.
The business model of architecture is flawed. Unionizing the labor won't fix that.
It actually might if collective labor demands would force systemic change in order for the business model to still be profitable. If not, then unionizing certainly wouldn't hurt the current business model.
I don't know. My experience with unions is all from teaching, and there the unions ensure a lot of good conditions and protections, and it's definitely worth the less than one percent of my teaching salaries that I pay in dues, and those hundreds of dollars in annual dues are not a hardship and more than pay for themselves in negotiated benefits. BUT: sometimes there are unintended losses in flexibility/creativity of working situations built into the union-negotiated agreements. The intentions are good, but for instance I can't choose to teach more credits per semester than the collective bargaining agreements allow, or as a lecturer I can't opt to take on additional duties (even well-compensated duties) that are supposed to be assigned to tenured staff, or I can't be a temporary adjunct for more than two semesters even if I want to be (because it allows more flexibility of my schedule), etc. I would be concerned that an architecture union might result in some similar inadvertent limitations, that are results of well-intended protections for most architects, but can have the end results of defining all architects' roles for them in ways that might not best fit every architect.
Very good points.
In my experience, it didn’t seem like principals really made that much money. Even if you made it so they were only making about 10% more than PM’s and all that money was spread out between the “workers” everyone would get maybe...$900 or so more a year? And if there’s shareholders getting a meager payout after years of service, never sounded like that was much of a stash to raid either...
But Marx says you’re being exploited!
The majority of exploitation in the architecture industry comes in the form of time. There's also the issue of underpaid (or un-paid) internships, as well as competition work that is given away for free. Working 60+ hours a week is the same as wage suppression, because you are being asked to increase your output without a corresponding increase in compensation. This allows clients (developers / landowners / literal capitalists) to undercut the value of our service, because without organized labor agitating for workers concerns, they can demand more production without increasing pay. I mean, think about it. How many architectural employees work long hours designing luxury housing projects that they can never afford to live in? They are essentially being poorly paid to increase the value of land that they are being priced out of.
Don’t be stupid and work for free.
newguy... you're on a dangerous balkins level path of ridicule here. How long have you been out in the working world?
New guy, 1) No one is forcing you to work in a place like that. I averaged 42-45hr weeks and remained on the high side of the compensation curve. 2) The reason the fees are so low is because most clients just want plans and permits to build but many architects make an exorbitant amount of extra work for themselves modeling the surrounding neighborhood in sketchup for rendering or using sketchup up to DD then remaking everything in Revit for CD’s ect. Ect. The fees make sense it’s the firms with broken business models that don’t. Also for a union to be successful you need to be necessary and control output on something, Long Beach longshoreman are a great example. Architects that create art and ignore CA, not that valuable.
Steeple, wonderful advice. I'll store that bit of lovely insight right next to my bootstraps and rugged individualism, thank you. Archi_dude, if your firm is rendering services (such as 3D modeling context) and not collecting fee on it, then that means that there are people in your office being asked to work on something without compensation. But for the record, I've never worked in an office that doesn't model context. It's an essential part of the design process. Your suggestion that we cut down these steps for efficiencies sake undermines the value of design, which is the very service that we provide. We don't just arrive at a final set of drawings, we work up to them. And how do we not control output? The buildings we design are what generates the vast amounts of wealth for the owners of those buildings in the first place. The buildings we design are the vehicles that are used to collect the rents of tenants and/or the extraction of labor from employees. Without those buildings, that wealth cannot be generated/extracted/funneled upward. The real obstacle we face is not one of controlling output, it's one of building solidarity.
90% of Clients want permits and coordinated drawings sets. They don’t care about arriving at a genious design. How would striking on a service that no one
cares about have an effect?
"buildings we design are what generates the vast amounts of wealth" Really? Well... if you're so damn certain that your killer design skills are magical goldmines, why not set up your own shop and charge what you think you're worth? Nothing's stopping you.
archi_, they don't want "coordinated drawing sets." They want a functional building that gives them guaranteed long term recurring profit in the form of equity/rent that they can extract from their tenants. The property they own begins generating value once a building is placed on it and they can charge tenants to use the space. If there is no building on the property, then that property doesn't generate the wealth they desire
and you can guarantee that wealth?I think the owner/client, in your very specific example, also plays a role there. It's almost like you've never worked in the field before.
In general the point is correct. Rent extraction (in every conceivable form) is the
foundation of capitalism.
New guy has completely missed the point. As others have noted it is the business model that has failed / eroded. Unionizing won’t help anyone squeeze water from a rock.
I’ve seen plenty of firm owners, principals etc working tedious hours of overtime right along side junior staff. Sometimes said owners even kick the younger ones out, feeling as though by being the owner, the buck stops with them and they ought to be the last ones out. Of course not every owner is that way, but don’t kid yourself into thinking that principal architects are raking it in because they aren’t.
Check the AIA salary calculator or Glassdoor at various large firms to see owner/principal pay. Compare those salaries to the higher ups at the big owners rep and project management firms. Even if it’s only a 5-10% difference, multiple that over the lifetime of a career and add in all the unpaid overtime, abysmal benefits packages, lack of bonuses etc, and you’ll start to understand why the brain drain continues.
Always follow the money, that’s usually where the answer is.
New guy has completely missed the point. As others have noted it
is the business model that has failed / eroded. Unionizing won’t help
anyone squeeze water from a rock....Always follow the money, that’s usually where the answer is.
Your point seems to be that the money supply only comes from Principles or firm owners, and that is only a part of the equation. Owners of firms are competing for work from a class of land-owners, speculators, and developers who have no incentive to pay more fee if they don't have to, because that would dip into their profit models. Well, if the owners of a firm cannot demand more fee, they will simply adjust by asking their employees to render more services for free. Some of the more generous owners may even pick up some of this work themselves so as to not push this burden down on their workforce (although I think this habit varies wildly from person to person more so than office to office. I've personally experienced both types). Regardless, the end result is that a pool of architectural designers in any given office is asked to output more work in the week than they are contracted for. User "archi_dude" above indicated that he only averaged 42-45 hours a week as if that is some sort of personal accomplishment. So let's use his example and do the math:
1) By his own admission, he is working around 100-260 hours a year for free. Multiply that by his hourly rate, and that is how much of his free labor his firm is offering their clients.
2) Now let's assume that his entire office is structured that way (and that his underlings aren't picking up the extra hours necessary to complete any given job). In an office of 10-20 people, that is roughly 1,000-5,200 hours of work that are given away every year for free. Multiply that by the average billing rate per staff member, and you can see just how much money is being gifted to developers.
3) Now let's multiply these numbers across the entire industry, and you can begin to imagine just how much architects on the whole are being played like chumps.
So who eats this massive discount that is just given away year after year after year? Is it the clients, developers, and land owners who force architecture firms to negatively compete and underbid one another? Is it the firm owners who have the means of controlling their staff size if and when work dries up? Or is it the employees who are working hours without compensation, effectively reducing their wages and living precariously in fluctuating markets completely at the mercy of capitalist land owners?
You tell me that the business model has eroded. So tell me. Cui bono?
Well I only averaged those extra hours at a firm where there was a generous bonus package directly tied to keeping the firm lean and mean. The last firm I worked straight 40 hours but the work was boring and the pay was crap to compensate for the culture of giving nothing more than average. Since we are in a free capitalistic society, I was able to freely switch jobs to something that once again, has some fast paced deadlines with expected overtime but ownership rewards it with some SERIOUS bonuses and salary bumps. So basically I still don’t work that outrageous hours but I’m compensated for it. I’d rather just stand up for myself and get a good job then sit back whine and try to bring everyone down to my lame level with a Union. But I get what your saying about pushing back on the evil landowners. That would be BA, however, Globalism. I would fear most production jobs would be outsourced. Same situation the McDonalds workers found themselves in when LA implemented 15$/hr. The self serve kiosks moved in.
I can see a teamsters United BIM workers union
I'm Gregory and have Bachelors Degree in Architecture from FIU. I have 10 years of experience with autocadd, and I am up to date with autocadd Release 2021. I started out with autocadd release 1.2 in 1983.
I've learned BIM / Revit which is very important to this profession, and it doesn't help me one bit since most Architects today cannot operate this new technology or don't see any advantage to this new software. They will use students for this technology and then lay them all off once the work slows down within a year.
Maybe its time for mandatory training by a union of architects to keep a safe (UN-stale) working environment. Most the Architects / owners today are keeping only 10% of their upper staff, and treat the rest of their employees like cattle and lay them off without notice. This is why I've chosen not to become a licensed Architect and don't want to be apart of this stale profession.
Although, I do still want, and need to work, and I liked what I learned in school, but no one will hire me here in Miami Florida. Also, I may have to move from here since Miami is now like a foreign country.
Employers here don't admit it, but they will not hire English only speaking Americans if they speak Spanish. It should be illegal for employers to discriminate, and layoff their employees without any notice and no severance pay.
What else can I say but that something has to happen, and what goes around surely will come back around in the end.
Yeah, that's not how things work, but you're free to believe that.
I'm not saying your experience is not true, but I will say that it's far from typical.
2020-1983 = 37
37-10 = 27
What were ya doin' the other 27 years?
we should Unionize and then all quit at the same time.
That's called a "strike"
Basically architecture is a guild, but the default heads of the guild, the AIA, NCARB, and NAAB have not been successful at all in limiting the number of practitioners. Indeed the more schools that need certification the more money the NAAB rakes in, the more architects in training and graduated and certified the more money the NCARB brings in, and the AIA tries to present itself as crucial, so send in those checks.
A second fault is that architects are untrained in the kind of architecture the educated public demands. Todays architects trypicaly have no clue as to architecture pre-Bauhaus. FLW's Prarie Style and mid-Century modern were popular but post-Modernism, Brutalism, Deconstructivism, and Parametricism only induced horror in the educated populace.
We thought ourselves artists, not artisans, and made the grave error of following the arc of the arts, not the builders. It mostly worked until Postmodernism. Irony doesn't work well in buildings.
Bumping this in light of the news coming out about workers at SHoP attempting to unionize.
https://archinect.com/news/art...
I don't think the intent is to simply drop work and go home after 40 hours. Rather, overtime would 1) be used more wisely by management and 2) compensated in some way. The NYT article indicates that the union backers hope to negotiate additional time off for overtime worked.
"Union backers at SHoP said they hoped to negotiate policies that might, for example, give workers an hour off after every two hours of overtime. (SHoP currently provides some compensatory time off, but employees say the amounts are small and inconsistent.)
"This would require principals and managers to use overtime more judiciously. SHoP employees said principals often wanted several renderings when a few would suffice, or drawings that lay beyond the scope of their contract — like a landscape."
The reality is that even within our industry the conditions vary wildly between firms. In particular, a lot of the "star" firms are much worse working environments. I am curious how much of a comparative benefit people in corporate firms, for example, would get out of unionizing. I also wonder if it would be more beneficial to the industry if people just started quitting the shitty behaving star firms in mass. Like, why don't all these people at shop who are unionizing, just quit and go somewhere they are treated better, I'm sure a lot of firms would be glad to hire them right now with better pay, and hours, and time off. This would also show firms that they can't just shit on their employees.
looks like some people were really working crazy unpaid overtime at shop. Really not sure why they were putting up with that in the first place.
I’m all for Unions so long as joining is voluntary. I think unions in design professions can certainly create positive changes. I also think those changes would not only be positive for the workers, but for the profession as a whole. It’s often the clients that impose the harsh deadlines and tight fees. Unions act as a backbone to firms that may suffer from a lack of one, and will ultimately result in a profession that can better balance between profits, lifestyle, and client demands.
"Firms that specialize in customized designs, like SHoP, regularly spend weeks generating proposals for the competitions through which clients award contracts, and for which the firms receive little or no pay. And many firms propose fees that are too low to support adequate staffing, several experts in the field said.
“People lower their fees, and once you lower your fees — I don’t know if it’s a slippery slope, but it’s definitely a slope,” said Andrew Bernheimer, the principal at Bernheimer Architecture and an associate professor at the Parsons School of Design in New York.
Architects at SHoP and other firms said their employers typically resolved this contradiction through vast quantities of unpaid overtime."
There it is, that's the problem right there. It's a poorly run business. Do your best not to work for a poorly run business, simple as that.
That goes for any office that requires a large amount of unpaid OT, it's a poor business model.
Would this all even be a conversation if firms just paid overtime?
I think it would. The firm I did the most overtime in was also the only firm that actually paid me for it. There were plenty of issues related to that aside from simply comply with labor laws and paying me for the work. If I was still working there, I'd still be wanting to have this conversation ... probably more so. All of this still relates to poorly run businesses. That firm is a good example of one that is still poorly run while still paying for OT.
Unless there's been a major re-organization, I was under the impression that SHoP was employee-owned - and therefore one of the last places that would have these kinds of issues and/or need to unionize...
From the NYT article: "The firm also said it had become 100 percent employee-owned this year, but equity shares have yet to be allocated and employees were skeptical that they would have much additional say in how the firm was managed."
Thanks for the c/p EA; just remembering that Gregg talked about the 'employee-owned' thing a number of years ago. Opting to do speculative work is always going to be a choice. Buying into a firm (or working for equity - I forget how it actually works w/ SHoP) and participating under a contract that doesn't offer paid overtime, would also be a choice. If enough employee-owners take issue w/ the practice, it seems like there would be avenues to resolve that don't require unionization...just strikes me as odd that of all places, SHoP is embroiled in this issue.
Appleseed - my question is the timing: if they haven't laid out how the shares are going to be distributed, is the union (who may or may not include people in management or some level of larger equity ownership) a way to try and gain a bigger block of votes/power internally, to have a more meaningful say? Not assigning a good/bad value judgement to that thought - it does strike me as odd given they are employee owned.
I was asked to elaborate on why I don't think unionization will solve the question of overtime/pay (for most individuals). The 2 minute version:
1 - There is zero percent chance unionization will come to pass in any 'red' states. Zero. Will firms in those states pay the same union labor rates? My experience with the construction industry here says no. Someone will always do it for less.
2 - The article in the Times focuses on competitions or extra-contractual examples where firms are not being paid and making a direct correlation as to overtime and, more tangentially, lower wages. Our firm does not do the kinds of competitions that SHOP does but that doesn't eliminate our need to market. Even a standard RFP response/second response/interview process is going to eat up 200 hours + of time to prepare something that will win. This is on top of the time for upper level staff and owners to go out and do in-person marketing. All of this is - the competitions, RFP's, client visits, sponsorships, etc. - all of it is overhead. Every services firm does marketing that's pure overhead. Pro-bono work? The 1% program? All overhead. Now, we can argue that the ratio of non-billable work to billable work is out of whack in some firms - certainly could be true. And that, smaller "design" firms trying to break into the bigs with no real billable work coming in are doing it on the backs of cheap/free labor. But that's not even close to the majority of us out there.
3 - Let's say that a union gets everyone "x" level of additional benefits/compensation and cuts their overtime to zero. Unless the assumption is that every firm owner is making 500k a year off the backs of their employees, where is that extra income going to materialize from? The article suggests the union organizers believe they can use unions to help lobby governmental agencies for higher fees. Good luck with that. See item 1 above.
4 - The real crux of our problem, overall, is we're still living with fee schedules that basically stopped in the 1970's, while having to deal with 30x more complicated buildings, codes, infrastructure, etc. Don't believe me? State of Alabama publishes the fee schedule they can LEGALLY use to bind firms upfront for fees. See many past 8%? GSA? Caps basic fees at 6%. You better believe every non-governmental entity knows what those ranges are. Some will go higher of course - lab projects and hospitals can routinely get 12% fees. High end residential? 15%+ easily.
4a - Yes, consultants are taking more and more of the total AE fee. But, as noted in some of the forums above, so are the other consultants an owner hires directly. Are owners going to routinely pay 20-25% fees to an A/E team? Ummm... no. Not for what 70-80% of us work on. For the whole project team (a PM, CM pre-con, AE, etc)? No. So.... how are we going to raise wages without an increase in pay? That leads us to...
5 - What is our scope of work, liability exposure, and time commitment contractually and does it align with doing amazing 'one off' architecture? No. Bang out that same Wal-Mart over and over? It probably is a lot easier, but frankly, Wal-Mart knows that and you're probably not making the same as a lab.
6 - Last thought: one of the big shifts that started in the late 70's - maybe coincidently with the fee schedules being outlawed - is that firms gradually phased out true 'drafters"- who may have had an AA or even high school level training but did the bulk of the drafting work - in favor of having degree students perform more of that work. You can see why - a more educated eye, someone who knew more about design... Schools responded by cranking out more fresh graduates, who went off and ultimately replaced that more in-expensive (over the long run) labor pool. What never happened correspondingly was a way to ramp up their pay and instead it equalized out to what the drafter was making. IDP cemented this dysfunctional relationship by making it impossible to get licensed without the experience. Throw on the kerosene of schools focusing less on "practical" training (or at the very least what that drafter would have gotten at the local vo-tech) in favor of a highly artistic bent and you have the perfect 40 year (and counting) inferno.
This list isn't exclusive. But a union isn't going to fix any of them.
Question, why are you deliberately leaving out the obvious? This is about exploitative work practices, unremunerative labor, no matter if it's overhead, is still problematic. I think most people would be satisfied with a salary commensurate with their labor, and to not get paid for their labor, because of all the things you cited above, is not a reason to exploit, and you almost certainly are apologizing for the practice of that exploitation.
Thank you for taking my invitation to elaborate. I do appreciate your opinion as it relates to all this because you do come at it from a different perspective than most of us and I think it's important to understand and see the issue from multiple perspectives.
That being said, I'm disappointed that you're still framing this personally and limiting yourself to seeing things based on your practice and markets rather than something more broad and holistic. You've touched on some broader points, but still use your limited and focused experience to dismiss them. I don't say that to mean that you don't have sufficient experience or that I somehow have more ... I don't, and I think you have plenty of experience to base your opinions on, but it seems limited to your practice and region as you draw upon it to dismiss points that you framed as broader.
I'd agree with you that you've identified issues in the profession. Yet, you haven't offered any substantive argument for what will change the issues you've identified. Instead, you've simply opined that unionization will not solve it based on what essentially amounts to thought-terminating clichés; "Someone will always do it for less," "But that's not even close to the majority of us out there," "Good luck with that," "So.... how are we going to raise wages without an increase in pay?"
You stated in your comment in the news article where I invited you to elaborate that "broad scale unionization will not solve the issues most people want solved (pay and overtime)." You made it sound like you had some thoughts on solving it, or at least speaking about it more broadly. It appears I was mistaken with my interpretation of your comment. That's fine. It's also fine if you don't have any ideas on solving the issues facing the practice. But if that's the case, it seems like a failure of your running a business if you plan to continue with the business as things around are looking for change and I'd argue some of the issues you identify are not sustainable and change is necessary for long-term viability of the profession.
Will unionization solve these issues? I don't know. But if the best the business owners can say is "No, and we don't have any other ideas," then I'm going to side with the ones pushing for something different. You've acknowledged there are problems. Maintaining the status quo isn't likely to solve them as it led to them. It sounds like you want to simply maintain the status quo. If not, please let us know what you think will solve the issues you bring up.
The “drafters” point is very true. It’s a symptom of a broader trend away from more vocational training. This is a huge problem in many fields. You end up with a surplus of overqualified indebted grads and a scarcity of well trained technicians.
The med field has done a good job of creating more specialized technical training. The difference I guess is that these technical areas, like radiology, mri techs, PAs, RN, Etc are very well paid.
The "drafters" point is one that I keep coming back to as I've thought about this over the years. I actually think unionizing might help to bring this back, but it depends on how they are organized and what they negotiate. At least that's my quick take. I'll try to elaborate more when I have more time.
My hunch is that you are right about unions helping this.
beta - i'm not trying to duck it. there are remedies, under the law, for exploiting workers. will a union help with that? possibly. but it won't eliminate the practice - what will are people walking away from what they think are abusive jobs (and really, that's what a free market is for, right?).
everyday - i've never claimed to have an answer - the issues outlined there aren't definitive and no single thing is causing the wage and overtime issues at some firms.
Greg, you are being disengenuous, you know how hard those claims are to ajudicate? So, your suggestion is that the abused should just leave the abuser?
beta - absolutely know how hard they are to tackle. and of course, i am in no way advocating for people to be abused. one thing that would help? if the brightest talent stopped working for firms that treat them like this and find the firms that DO actually provide good wages, working conditions, etc.... we'd be in a better place right there. this is the biggest employee driven market i've seen in my time practicing (as an employee or employer).
Greg, we're just talking past one another here. I'm suggesting that firms stop treating people like their "capital", or unlimited resources, and start to realize that workers are breakable. Not that workers should stop working for exploitive firms. Workers should demand that firms stop exploiting them.
I’m not up on unions in general — what services industries have unions? [i’d say professional services, but that seems to not exist…just thinking about jobs where the skills, experience, personal input is the “service”, not food service ]
Teachers, …?
Electricians, plumbers, …?
Musicians, actors, movie production…?
Auto workers, Truckers, warehouse workers, Hotel workers, meat workers, coal miners...
I (sort of) pulled together a list in response to a similar question above from betonbrut (SEP 6, 18 6:12 PM). Probably the most apparent would be actors, musicians, film and television writers, professional athletes, air traffic controllers, pilots, etc. I'd add teachers to the list as well, but that was a given per the question. They are all more or less regarded as providing professional services, but it might depend on how you want to define that terminology. I'm trying to stick to what you called out: skill, experience, personal input.
I've never understood why professional sports lockouts work, barring maybe court of public opinion. There are 1,696 players on active NFL rosters. Do you realize how fast you could find 1,696 people ready to seize the opportunity to play?
There are only 450 NBA guys. You could find another 450 that would be entertaining enough to watch until the union bleeds out.
do you watch sports? getting to the level of the highest professional players takes time... not to mention these people have a celebrity status in today's game. it's akin to saying you could simply replace actors in your favorite show, which is why the writer's strike worked.
it's entertainment, on many levels.
https://www.latimes.com/sports...
people are also missing the point when bringing up large entities.. take a look at the recent starbucks case. the union there formed at one location in buffalo (20 something employees). so while there is a larger chain to contend against, the battle is still at a small, local level. same with amazon (who just settled with the NLRB because of union busting practices.. if anything the large corporation is harder to fight). the disparity in size has nothing to do with preventing unionization from happening other than convention, or what we are used to doing.
every employee at every company has the right to pursue unionization - it's just the old club in architecture that is preventing it in this case, and it's a clever tactic to claim "it can't be done."
Step aside Tom Brady, Balkins will take over the second half
Tell me Rick didn't read the article without telling me Rick didn't read the article.
RJ87 I realize that I'm dating myself here, but have you ever watched scabs play football? It's fucking horrid. I'm for athletes and unions, I'm for unions in NCAA. They treat humans like chattel without unions.
Unions are free
Unions are a sign of the free market working. Anti union sentiment is a sign that businesses don’t really want free markets.
They want enough freedom to prosper, but want to be insulated from the forces of liberty that compete with their prosperity. That’s not how this thing is supposed to work, and that’s why we have corporatism/fascism and not healthy free market capitalism in the US.
We either need to empower workers through unionization, to preserve a balance, or accept our fate towards socialism. You can only squeeze people so far.
As for athletes…good god…take a look at how boxers are treated.
They're on the team, not hired from a list of jabronies from the paaaark.
I wasn't saying that they quality of play would be as high. I'm just saying I'd still drink in a parking lot for 8 hours to watch my cities "jabronies from the paaaark" run into the other cities clearly inferior and cheating squad of jabronies.
For reference, I'm a big college sports fan but I rarely watch pro teams. So I'm quite literally used to / prefer to watch a lesser product than I could if I watched the NFL or MLB for instance. If they replaced every college football player with whatever kids they rounded up from the bars every weekend, I'd watch that too.
I remembered seeing a line item in the ILFI's Just label about whether or not the organization is "Union Friendly." It's there under the heading for Equity in the v1.0 labels, and looks like it was reframed as "Freedom of Association" in the v2.0 labels, still under the same heading.
There are a fair number of architecture firms represented under both versions. Each company/org represented in the database includes a dropbox link where company policies and statements are available for viewing. Look up your favorite firms to see what they indicate as supportive of worker's right to organize.
https://just.living-future.org...
Also refer to the manuals:
See my blog post for more information on this and a list of larger firms that are represented in the Just label database.
https://archinect.com/blog/article/150293426/which-architectural-firms-support-unions
This right here.
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1. 1099 employees
2. Unpaid internships
3. Unpaid overtime
4. Minimum or no benefits
5. Difficulty in acquiring internship hours
Firms get away with exploiting employees because they are accepted as sop.
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A union would crystalize these for what they are and make the firms that do this into the pariahs they so richly deserve to be.
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