NYC Architecture Firm Recognizes Industry's First Union

Workers at Bernheimer Architecture, a firm based in New York City that specializes in residential buildings, have become the first in the industry to successfully form a union.

According to a report in The New York Times, the 22-member firm has voluntarily recognized the union, which will join the International Associations of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. The company said it welcomed the move, conceding that the architecture sector has “a legacy of exploitation.”

“We know that architecture is a discipline and profession that has a legacy of exploitation. I am of the opinion that one possible way for things to improve is for educators and professionals to show that they value the people who make all of our architecture happen,” said Andrew Bernheimer, principal, in an interview with the Times.

“I truly believe it makes our place better, that we’ll provide better architecture,” Bernheimer said.

Architects who work long hours—some shops average 50 hours per week, which can surge to 70 hours as deadlines approach for blueprints—are organizing to lift payrolls that tend to be less than other professions that require continuing education and licensing, the Times reported.

Architect salaries usually top out in low six-figure salaries, with few architects earning more than $200K annually, even at high-profile firms in large cities, according to a recent report from the American Institute of Architects.

Architects say their work is not valued as much as other building contractors, like construction firms, and they often are pressured to do labor-intensive services like preparing proposals for developers at highly discounted rates or pro bono, the Times reported.

A union-organizing drive at another NYC architecture firm—aiming at improving diversity as well as the pay scale and work hours—failed earlier this year.

In December, about a dozen employees of SHoP Architects announced on Instagram their plans to unionize under the rubric Architectural Workers United.

The workers also sent a letter asking for voluntary recognition of the new union to partners at SHoP, designers of high-profile projects including the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn and a supertall at 111 West 57^th Street.

After collecting signed union cards from a majority of the firm’s 135 employees in January and filing to schedule a union vote, the union organizers abruptly changed course in a February social media post, declaring they were ending the effort after encountering “a powerful anti-union campaign” that induced several employees to change their minds.

“To form a successful union, we must not only gain support, but retain it,” the organizers at SHoP Architects said in the social media post, according to a report in curbed.com.