Portside

Unionization in design industries is approaching a tipping point. In July, three different sectors achieved major victories for the labor movement. At Blizzard, a video game developer where other members have already unionized, more than 500 employees formed a “wall-to-wall” union. Workers at the Apple Store in Towson, Maryland—the first such store to unionize at the world’s most famous design company—ratified their first contract. And finally, my colleagues and I at Bernheimer Architecture (BA) ratified the first collectively bargained contract at a private-sector architecture office. 

While the numbers are relatively small, these victories represent a massive shift in how designers see themselves: We went from being a privileged set of artisans to workers seeking solidarity with other workers in all industries. Learning from the workers and organizers who have put in the hard work before us, designers need to continue to take advantage of the current climate and organize more workplaces. Although labor has made a series of impressive gains in the past few years, only 10 percent of workers in the United States are unionized. 

BA Union formed in 2022 as a response to growing dissatisfaction within the architecture industry. Architects’ working conditions have degraded in similar ways to other industries in recent years. Once a solid professional job that could provide a comfortable middle class life, young designers enter our industry facing an increasingly hostile environment. They arrive at their first jobs with five to six figures of debt due to an expensive studio-based education. Wages have declined relative to other comparable professions, even though the expectation to work long hours has remained. Architects’ influence has also waned within the building industry, with specialized consultants and technicians consuming more bandwidth every year. These same forces have also created a working environment in which technology is completely dominant, strangling out the artistic skills fostered in the studio environment. 

While our office was a relative calm spot in a sea of turbulent and chaotic practices, we are not immune to the broader systemic forces degrading work everywhere. After a failed union drive at a large architecture office in New York, we picked up where our comrades left off and achieved voluntary recognition in September 2022. After nearly two years of continuous organizing and negotiations, we ratified our first contract, achieving unprecedented rights and protections within our industry, including: elimination of “at-will employment,” a thirty-six-hour work week, the ability to work remotely, higher wages and more. 

While we are thrilled by what we’ve accomplished, we know that without expanding our work beyond our office, we will not only fail to change our industry, but forgo our responsibility to  continue the momentum for workers everywhere. Designers have the opportunity to contribute in unique ways to the labor movement at large.

Workers at BA Union are actively supporting other offices in their own efforts. Working with Architectural Workers United (AWU), an organizing campaign out of the IAM, our goal is to organize enough offices to establish a substantial local lodge, creating a centralized place for strategizing and political operations. With enough union density, our lodge can begin contacting local officials in order to ensure that all laborers involved in the construction industry receive fair wages and protections.

And more broadly, designers can begin to leverage their unique talents for creativity and problem solving to support traditional forms of organizing which have not historically had access to such ways of thinking and making. With unions at companies like Condé Nast, where staff members successfully organized at publications including Architectural Digest, The New Yorker and Wired, workers can influence design across a wide range of media and disciplines.

Although there is a bias among the public towards a certain blue collar stereotype when it comes to unions, our experience tells us that unionization is the most viable tool for worker empowerment in all industries. It’s time to forgo outdated ways of thinking and pursue real solidarity wherever we can. We’re excited to join this historic movement and get to work.

This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.