On Thursday the RIBA issued a press release, RIBA President Ruth Reed takes action to tackle student hardship and low pay, which set out proposals to deal with financial hardship amongst architecture students, graduates and young practitioners.
The proposals include:
- an increase in the student hardship fund (to help ‘at least another 100 students’);
- a review group to improve pay and employment conditions (and in particular ‘rigorous minimum pay requirements’) for implementation in 2011;
- a ‘campaign’ to remove exemption from minimum wage for practical training over six months;
- research into alternative careers for the 50% of graduates who don’t become architects.
Back in March the low pay issue hit the headlines with allegations that a London Architect Practice was offering a part-qualified architect a job at £400 for a 70 hour week, and I responded that these situations arise because either architects are either bad at business or they are willing to abuse employees (or both).
Looking at these new steps, which have been championed by RIBA President Ruth Reed, I’m encouraged by the review group because on the face of it the intention is to make a genuine effort to change the low pay culture of practice. The press release states that the review group will be comprised of representatives from small practice, ARCHAOS and APSAA, in other words small firms, students and professional studies advisors. Whilst it is a shame that there is no mention of large firms (who are surely not innocent of bad practice), at least this is encouraging.
On the other hand, the campaign to remove exemption from minimum wage for practical training over six months in effect means that a graduate or post graduate masters qualified architecture student can be employed for nothing at all for up to six months. Surely this isn’t acceptable? On the other hand, you might be shocked to learn that students in practical training are not entitled to the minimum wage, if their placement doesn’t exceed one year. (Thanks Malcolm Stroud)
Don’t moan, get stuck in!
The difficulty of course, will be in the effective implementation of these actions so that they produce real productive change where it is needed, i.e. graduates are paid a fair wage for a fair days work. This means any action must also tackle the long hours/unpaid overtime culture, or higher salaries will be meaningless.
It also means teaching people who have architectural practice how to run them on a profitable basis, and not to resort to exploitative employment practices as a substitute for business ethics, just because ‘its what we did when I was a Part II’.
If you’d like to get involved in this debate you should definitely join Keith Tomlinson’s Facebook Group ‘Architects against Low Pay’ which has over 2800 members. Ruth Reed has joined the group and is responding to forum discussions. Lets use our social tools to help her push ahead and make some real changes.
“…a young man works for a talentless, greedy, pseudo-pious poseur who periodically takes in students to teach them architecture, while actually teaching them nothing, treating them badly, living grandly off their tuition fees, and having them do draughting work that he passes off as his own.” this is not a story of architectur student’s hardship in 2010 – but part fo the plot from a Charles Dickens novel from the early 1840s. Change is overdue.
Perhaps the RIBA should abolish the plan of work now that the fee scale is gone. Architects would be encouraged to apply creativity in designing their service to suite each individual client’s needs, thus adding value and differentiating themselves from their competitors. Surely, while it has helped architects plan and manager their work, the plan of work has also contributed to the commoditization of architects’ services and thus the race to the lowest fee.
Face it, Architecture was never a secure career and now it is in a death spin. CADD/BIM is reducing the Architects job to standardised solutions and instant graphics generation. Much of the intensive work is increasingly being outsourced to low wage countries. The people who actually pay for the buildings don’t want to pat for too much in the way of “architectural values” – they like inappropriate and ugly. So what do Architects have left, apart from the fact they are desperately willing to work long hours for low pay and no job security? What?
Exasperation may be appropriate but it is never (ever) helpful. Architecture school needs to educate students for the reality that if they want to apply their imagination and creativity to the physical world they are going to need to learn how to turn a profit. That means learning how to run a business and get jobs. Its already happening! They should also learn how to take part in the design of the built environment in different ways: landscape urbanism, interaction design, communication design, etc. It was never easy and it never will be; stop crying and think about the possibilities!
I think the Martin Chuzzlewit reference is very appropriate. The culture of architecture is selfish and greedy. Most of the architects I have worked with value themselves enormously and very few have even a smattering of talent. 10% of the profession are very good – many of the the others are surplus to requirements. The profession loses sight of ideals and taste when it can smell the money. It certainly wont pay the staff a wage. It has gone beyond a joke with the rise in house prices, to doom a generation of architects to design buildings for a living when they will NEVER be able to afford a house of their own on the wages on offer? To caricature an architect imagine a hunched man wandering around an office repeating ‘were not making any money on that job’ to everyone who catches his eye, and then running away if someone asks a question expecting him to have any answers.The building contractors are the power houses now, and the architectural staff musty old farts lingering in the background somewhere, fighting each other over fees. Take a look at University courses – I have spent time with a great many graduates who have been heartbroken to spend months on electrical layouts, or door schedules. They have been lied to by the Universities (and so have their parents who have finacially contributed thinking architecture is a ‘respectable profession’) that they will get a job on graduation. In reality 50% are needed, the rest can get a job in a supermarket packing shelves, if they are lucky. It is time to put the pretensions away, most of UK architecture is nasty, boring poorly paid and unappreciated work. Send the kids to college – they will earn double the wages as a plasterer.