BA Union Bargaining Committee Members Ann Le, Kolby Forbes, and Je Siqueira on a Path Towards Systemic Change

By Julia Gamolina

BA Union formed in 2022 at Brooklyn-based architecture firm Bernheimer Architecture, as the first private sector union at an architectural practice in the US. Over the past year, the bargaining committee has worked with the firm’s management to negotiate the first ever collective bargaining agreement. Architects and designers, Ann Le, Kolby Forbes, and Je Siqueira, are three of the four members of this committee. Throughout this process, they hoped that this contract would be able to give architectural workers a greater voice in their workplace and industry and demonstrate a path towards systemic changes within the profession.

JG: I'd first love to know how, why, and when the union was formed.

AL: We first started organizing in the late spring of 2022. Je introduced us to IAMAW, also known as the Machinists, and we began to have conversations with all of our coworkers to gauge interest. From there we were able to gather majority support and received voluntary recognition in August 2022, which formalized the BA Union.

We started the union because we wanted to ensure equity for everyone in our firm and greater say in our career paths within the firm and beyond. By collectively bargaining a contract, we aimed at memorializing some things that we felt already worked well in the office, bringing new improvements to other aspects, and also introducing a truly equitable tool to hold leadership accountable as well. By prioritizing working conditions at our firm, we hope to change and improve the industry at large.

(Malin+Goetz) - NoMad. Photography by Alan Tansey.

How did you then decide to go with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW)?

JS: The Architecture Lobby connected a few of us to David DiMaria — a staff organizer at the Machinists — back when we were organizing at SHoP and since then it’s always been the Machinists. Back at SHoP, we interviewed several unions but David won our trust as he had been our first contact at a union and also showed immediate interest and commitment to unionizing not only our workplace but also our profession, which is one of the few that has not been unionized. In comparing all that other unions would be able to provide in terms of support and resources to our campaign, the Machinists were comparable but had the advantage of now having the only organizer in the country with knowledge about the architecture profession. We stuck with them and haven’t looked back.

How do you decide who can be part of the union and who can't?

KF The union consists of all workers at Bernheimer Architecture, excluding management. Management is defined as a worker that has hiring and firing power, so currently that includes all of the principals at BA.

How was the bargaining committee formed? For our readers who may not know, what is a bargaining committee?

KF: The bargaining committee is responsible for meeting with management to negotiate the union contract that will eventually become the collective bargaining agreement, CBA. The CBA becomes the guide for all working conditions, and includes areas such as wages, just cause, PTO, team structure, and hours of work, to name a few.

Once a union is formed, all conditions need to be negotiated and agreed upon by both parties. The bargaining committee was formed from nominations from the rest of the union, which led to four of us accepting and completing training provided by the Machinists. The nominations and training took place early on in the process and was a great opportunity to learn more about the larger network of union workers that we would be joining. Being exposed to the larger body of the Machinists during the training was a good reminder that architectural work is no different than any other work and that our labor needs to be fairly compensated like any other profession.

Site F Affordable Housing, Brooklyn, NY. Photography by Albert Vecerka/ESTO.

How was the process started at Bernheimer Architecture? How is it working now?

AL: Things are working well so far. We just ratified our first contract on July 25 of this year, with a unanimous vote for the contract. Prior to ratifying, and immediately after we were first recognized, we created the Labor-Management Committee (LMC) — a committee made up of 50% management and 50% workers — which allowed for a quick democratic decision-making process while negotiations were taking place. Since there were items that workers felt needed more immediate attention from management which also didn’t necessarily require negotiating, the LMC became a very useful tool for that. It was through the LMC that we were able to get office-wide ARE studying materials for those taking the exam and paid family leave for a coworker who needed it immediately.

Tell me about the negotiation process. Are you happy with the outcome?

KF Absolutely, I think we are all very happy with the outcome! We were able to use a process called Interest Based Bargaining (IBB) to negotiate, which was really helpful for both the union and management. IBB helped to make negotiations a collaborative effort, instead of one that could have easily turned combative. In IBB — which we could easily describe as a brainstorming session — we would start each meeting by clearly explaining the issue before even beginning to work on new proposals or policies. By having everyone understand what we believed wasn’t working in the office, management would then be more understanding of our desire for wanting to propose something new.

Utica Affordable Housing, Brooklyn, NY. Courtesy of Bernheimer Architecture.

Now that you've ratified the contract, how does it feel? And what's next?

JS: It feels pretty great! Going back to when we first got voluntarily recognized back in 2022, I (Je) felt a sense of relief, a sense that I no longer was vulnerable to being let go without a just cause. Just that alone allowed me to use the energy I spent feeling afraid of losing my job at any moment’s notice to now putting it towards producing good work, being more efficient. Now that we have a ratified contract, I’m filled with so much optimism for what’s in the future for our profession and our industry. If we can do one contract (and a second one in the works right now), we can do so much more. Many of us want to not only focus on the well being of our coworkers at BA as well as Sage and Coombe — and hopefully many other workplaces to come — but we also want to have a stronger voice at the city level; looking at how unionized labor within our profession can be used as leverage in legislature, perhaps — just like many other industries — giving unionized architecture firms a leg up in acquiring public projects. All this to say, there’s much more to come!

KF: It feels really special and like a weight has been lifted! At the beginning of this process, it felt daunting knowing that we would need to be responsible for writing and negotiating over something that hadn’t been done before in our profession. Now that the contract has been ratified I’d say I’m most excited to see us actively using it and seeing how it evolves and changes with the needs of our workplace. It will be great to see how our industry responds to it and how it can continue to be improved over time!

AL: I feel very proud of everyone in the bargaining unit and in management, we've really come so far. I know that we are an exception, but our negotiating experience was very positive and collaborative, and it has been exciting to make and see change in our office. I hope that this will provide momentum for other workers to organize and be an example for employers to work with their employees as allies to make positive change in architectural practice.