Section of Architectural Workers (SAW)

UVW-SAW is a group within UVW representing architectural workers in the U.K.

ABOUT SAW

SAW collectively take action and fight against the negative impacts of architectural work on workers, communities, and the environment.

Members of SAW are architectural workers and include: architectural assistants, model-makers, BIM technicians, admin workers, architects, landscape architects, estimators, students, visualisers, researchers, receptionists, university workers, interior designers, freelancers, cleaners and sole-traders. Members are at all levels of professional qualification, across migration statuses, and contract types. Members are not those with the power to hire and fire.

WHAT WE DO

Members of SAW organise both in their workplaces and across the sector around overwork, under-pay, unstable employment, a toxic workplace and university culture, discrimination and unethical practice. Members facilitate collective casework, host training and events, and run campaigns.

OUR DEMANDS

End Overwork
Employers should observe existing working time regulations, such as the 48 hour maximum week. Overtime should be optional, pre-agreed and paid. Lunch breaks, annual leave, and TOIL must be properly facilitated.

Transparent and Sustainable Pay
At least Living Wage for all employees, freelance and outsourced workers. An end to all unpaid work, including un/under-paid overtime, internships. Wages should be transparent and in accordance with company pay scales. Discrimination is not acceptable.

Fair Employment
Architectural practices should move towards being democratically controlled by their workforces: as employee-run-trusts, cooperatives or via worker’s councils. Studios must end hiring and firing cycles, and the use of punitive probation periods. Employers should facilitate career and education development. Architectural work should be accessible to all, regardless of disability, race, parental status or age.

NEWS

MORE NEWS

UVW architectural workers join tenant unions at COP26 protests

05.11.2021

UVW members are organising for power with comrades from across the globe!

19.05.2021

UK Architects report exploitive work practices amid lockdown

15.10.2020

SUPPORTERS

Adam Nathanial Furman, Artist & Designer
Anna Minton, writer, journalist and Reader in Architecture at UEL
Architect’s Climate Action Network (ACAN)
Bob Shiels, Former Chief Architects for the GLC (1975-89)
Chris Stewart, Director of Collective Architecture
Douglas Spencer, author of The Architecture of Neoliberalism (2018)
Elsie Owusu, RIBA Council Member and Director of Elsie Owusu Architects

Professor Harriet Harriss, Architectural Educator
Jack Self, REAL Review
Kate Macintosh, Architect of Dawson’s Heights and Macintosh Court
Peggy Deamer and Keefer Dunn – The Architecture Lobby
Robin Nicholson, Cullinan Studio and Convenor of the Edge
Tom Woolley, part of BDS-TASS (a trade union for private sector architects in the 1970s-80s)
Thandi Loewenson, Prof Jane Rendell and David Roberts, Bartlett School of Architecture

GET INVOLVED

BECOME A MEMBER

Join UVW-SAW today and fight for your rights!

Join SAW

If you have a problem at work: let us know here

General inquiries: info@uvwunion.org.uk