The highest profile effort to unionize the architecture industry has just failed. On Friday, votes were tallied on a unionization petition at the Oslo- and New York-based architecture and design firm Snøhetta, and in a 35 to 29 vote, the 65 employees in its U.S. studios voted against what would have been the architecture industry’s second private sector union.
“The majority of employees made it clear that they opposed this direction for our workplace,” the firm’s management said in a statement. “We look forward to working together as one studio to continue building on our legacy of creativity and collaboration.”
It’s a notable defeat for a broader labor organization effort in an industry that has been notorious among its low- and mid-level workers for long, unpredictable hours, incommensurate pay, and fickle job security. Following the September 2022 formation of a union at Bernheimer Architecture, a New York-based firm of 22 people, this recent union vote at 350-person, nine-studio Snøhetta is a sign that change may be slow to come for the architecture industry.
The organization campaigns at these firms—and a growing number of others—has been shepherded by Architectural Workers United (AWU), a coalition of workers at architecture firms formed in early 2021 that’s affiliated with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW), with which the one unionized firm is associated. Andrew Daley is a staff organizer at IAMAW and the informal figurehead of AWU, and he focuses specifically on supporting workers to create unions at design architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design firms.
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