RIBA pledges to kick out wage abuse firms
Angela Brady outside RIBA in July 2010.
Source: Dan CarrierBrady promises to ’go after’ practices that fail to pay students at least minimum wage
The RIBA has said it will expel practices that ignore its new rules on student pay, with incoming president Angela Brady promising a zero-tolerance policy on the issue when she takes over in September.
From the beginning of July, RIBA-registered practices will have to pay students the national minimum wage under new membership rules. Members will be formally told of the changes next month when annual memberships renewals start.
The move follows recommendations from the RIBA’s Pay and Conditions working group set up last November by current president Ruth Reed.
This week Reed warned that firms that flouted the new rules would be struck off its register.
“They will lose their chartered practice status,” she said. “We’re trying to achieve a cultural change in the profession and I think the majority will handle this responsibly.”
Brady added that she would target non-payers when she becomes president. “I really will go after them,” she said. “This is not acceptable. It’s one thing giving students work experience but quite another exploiting them.”
Brady said one proposal was to make firms entering RIBA competitions sign a declaration that all students used had been paid. “Winning work using free labour is anti-competitive,” she said.
And she added that she would push for firms to pay more than the current minimum wage of £5.93 an hour for those aged 21 or over and £4.92 for those between 18 and 20.
”I will really go after firms that don’t pay students. This is not acceptable”
Angela Brady
“We shouldn’t be looking just to pay the minimum,” she said. “That’s not enough either. Students tell me that they feel they have no choice but to do it.”
The RIBA has said firms not paying students correctly will be given a chance to rectify the situation before they are suspended. Its group director of membership and professional supportRichard Brindley said: “If they still don’t put it right they will be struck off the chartered practice system.”
And he said students who were working at firms that ignored the new rules could call in anonymously and shop them.
But the founder of Architects Against Low Pay accused the RIBA of reacting too slowly on the issue.
Keith Tomlinson said: “The RIBA just stood by passively wringing their hands in the ivory tower in Portland Place. Unfortunately because they see themselves as a learned society they do not really operate effectively to promote and assist architects.”
Is the RIBA’s action on low pay tough enough? Join the debate here
Carrots, orange juice and dawn finishes
By BD Buildings Editor Oliver Wainwright
The RIBA’s announcement is a welcome step in the right direction but will it stop glamorous offices from luring star-struck students to their lairs to work for free?
I spent six months as an intern in a notorious Rotterdam sweatshop, rewarded with €400 a month – which rose to €600 a month after three months as a special treat – working an average of 100 hours per week, often more. This just about covered rent, and there was conveniently little else to spend money on: three meals a day were provided in the office, to prevent you from leaving, with fresh orange juice on tap – to keep the inevitable sickness at bay.
You started to notice things were wrong when you could no longer focus beyond the distance of your screen – a problem addressed in a rival office by the provision of raw carrots every morning – and when there was not enough space on the timesheet to log the 24hr shifts. Fun for a while but the novelty of dawn signalling the end of the working day soon wears off.
Barely paid internships have long been the norm in mainland Europe – where placements are often built into the university courses, or else topped up by the generous EU-funded Leonardo and Erasmus programmes – but such support structure has been crucially lost in translation to the UK, where “intern” is usually a flimsy disguise for free labour.
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Readers' comments (44)
to push firms to pay £4.92 an hour ......
yes, it needs to be done, but talk about a modest ambition - how do you live on that in Britain ?
remind me - the anticipated debt-levels for these high-earners ? 50k or was it more ?
get real, folks. This is not really a job for RIBA - it is a Government matter. It is the law.
Practices will adjust and move into a more realistic if tough economic world, or many will close.
yes, RIBA has to demand that minimum wages are paid - but in firms where the books simply cannot balance, isn't that already an admission that it is too late ?
RIBA should be fighting for decent, honest procurement - showing the quality of good design - making the point again and again and again about the difference between price and value.
May ! I say we seem to have a distinct problem with job description earlier comments have compared a minimum wage with a Mcdonalds/Tesco employee .
Designing any development/building can be extremely demanding from a liability point of view whilst the student employed may have a level of intellect still requires guidance by an experienced mentor .
Example ! I was asked by a then Architect what is a dpc I explained the purpose of a dpc .
Naturally we would all like to receive a reasonable reward for our work ' Before we can run we need to learn how to walk '
Anthony Doody MCIAT
Chartered Architectural Technologist
It's better to put architecture students off their career choice early so they might see the light. Hopefully, they can retrain for a job that pays more than £20K after five years of training.
Actually, you wouldn't have to retrain to earn about that amount.
Enforcing minimum wages is a role for the government promoting architecture and the profession is the role of the RIBA.
We totally agree that all members of staff within a practice, including students, should be paid but feel that the RIBA should be concentrating on promoting Architects and the profession rather than ‘going after practices’.
If clients were more aware of the benefits an architect brings to their project we would all have a better chance of securing work at fee levels that enable us to reward all staff accordingly.
It is important that young would-be architects have the opportunity to escape the profession while they are still young enough to restart in a decent career. Many of these young people are intelligent, hardworking and competent, and deserve a reasonably secure and hopeful future.
I agree with John Everitt. We have had a year and a half of timid posturing long, long after the event from the current President and it does not auger well that the President-elect is looking to start her tenure with more slapping of the membership.
The RIBA should return to the role of leading and representing. The current focus on berating the profession publicly does little to improve our image and nothing to reinforce our credentials as professionals.
Now more than ever, it would more creditable for the RIBA to focus on eliminating the culture of speculative and uneconomic work. No other profession indulges its rapacious client base to the same degree and whilst it continues to be regarded as a necessity, so will the pressure on junior staff to accept penury as part of the 'apprenticeship' into the profession.
Charles and John, I'm sure you pay you cleaner a proper wage but it seems you are having you're arm twisted to pay students less than min wage.
Perhaps you should look at your own business model and stop bleating to the RIBA to promote your practice's worth. If you can't make a living from your business if you adhere to minimum wage legislation I think it might be the time for you to pack it in,
It strucks me how naive people can be... If you are forced to operate as an architectural practice in a country where there is no protection of any kind, and more to the point no law regulations, for the job of architect it is inevitable that practices with a strong will to survive will seek slave labour. As long as Joe Blocke does not call himslef an Architect he/she can do architects job since there are people a plenty willing to employ such a person. Title protection is just simply laughable! RIBA can promote architecture untill they are blue on their faces but will do nothing to change the fate of architects in this country unless legisaltion level regulations are introduced. This comes in a form of requirement that any work bound to apply for planning or building regulation approvals would need to be undersigned by a qualified architect. Then fees charged by architects would be able to reflect the amount of knowledge, hard work and responsibility architects shoulder while designing buildings or structures. Would you be willing to undergo a medical procedure for 10% of a normal price if it was offered by a person who "has done it many times before and here is the list of happy customers"? Unthinkable isn't it? Nobody thinks about asking a friend of a friend who had a brush with the legal system to represent them in a serious legal case? This the very broad field for RIBA to operate within and be effective! Change peoples mind set to raise the profile of the profession to where it belongs and where it used to be - well above those of a mediacal or legal profession!
Its shameful for any professional practise to be abusing any of their staff by paying them minimal salaries. This should have been done years ago, the RIBA had to be forced into this, and the result is hardly worthwhile - £5.93 per hour, what a joke! Is this all it means being a member of the RIBA, that you have to pay your staff a minimum of £5.93 per hour. Stupid elitist profession.
If we could calculate pay on a pro rata basis isn't half the industry underpaid with the culture of stupid 'unpaid' hours we do?