Gaining Leverage

In September, Brooklyn’s Bernheimer Architects became the nation’s first organized architectural workplace in recent memory. At a panel talk hosted by Architectural Workers United and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), Bernheimer employees Ann Le and Chris Beck spoke about their motivations for launching their union campaign, which lasted two years. “Architecture offices typically prioritize projects, not the workplace,” Le said. “A union helps balance that out and center workers’ voices.” David DiMaria and Andrew Daley from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, were also on hand to field questions about organizing a privately owned design office. While their responses often dug into the technical, DiMaria and Daley reiterated the economic bigger picture. “The building trades have leverage. Construction firms have leverage. The only people in the building industry that don’t have leverage are the ones who design the buildings,” DiMaria said. “If architects don’t set those standards, there won’t be a floor. There has to be a cost for your work.”