Does Our Profession Need a Union?

[Pat S. Rosend]

I am beginning to wonder if people posting have ever worked in other fields like retail or even design/build. Employer abuse is prevelant everywhere. Without a collective voice, employees have no leverage and no say in the enterprise. I know many people will say, it’s my company why should the employees get a say at how I run it? Well they have a stake in the company doing well so they can stay employed. They might actually have some good ideas or be willing to share the sacrifice without complaint as long as they feel valued.

 

I somtimes wonder that LA’s are too much of a free spirit and do not have a good grasp of the dog eat dog world of business. I know I was. I never rec’d any indication in school what it was like to work in a real office, to deal with client budgets, client decisions, regualtory issues and public input. we were just taught to make beautiful plans and not to worry about the other stuff. IMHO it is a disservice to the profession.

[Theodore Tegen]

Boy, a lot of the responses on here make me truly sad for some people’s view of the profession.  I truly hope this forum is like most internet forums, where disgruntled/disenchanted people come to rant about their misfortunes; and not a realistic cross-section of our industry.

[Anonymous]

“I sometimes wonder that LA’s are too much of a free spirit and do not have a good grasp of the dog eat dog world of business.”

 

Thanks Pat S. I couldn’t have said it any better. I think people hear about companies like Google and a few others that really seem to treat their employees like they want to be treated, just because it’s the right thing to do. But companies like these are the exception. There are sharks in every kind of industry. If the profession of landscape architecture is too tough for some of you, where’s the nice alternative? It’s sad to say, but we live in a world where you have to fight to keep what you have as well as to get anything extra.

 

For four years as a Teamster, I paid for school loading semi-trucks in the evening. I saw the good and the bad side of the union shop. I witnessed how the union would step in when union and non-union employees were being mistreated by management. Management couldn’t just come in and impose something unfair on the workers just to increase profits.

 

On the flip side, I recall how the union would go to bat for idiots who continuously missed work because they had a drug or some other problem. Pretty much the only thing that could get a person fired was committing a crime while at work. Another thing that still sticks in my craw is when one night when I was still relatively new, a union steward came over to me while I was loading a truck and told me to slow down. When I asked him why, he told me because I was taking money away from our brothers and sisters families. Even at twenty something years old I knew this was b.s.

 

I would be all for the unionization of the profession, but only if we could keep the historically negative aspects of unions out. If unions and management could work together for the benefit of both the company and the employee, that would be a beautiful thing.

 

Even with the not so good side of unions, where would working class folks be if we never had them? Think about company stores, sweatshops and hundreds of workers dying on the job.

[mark foster]

“I am beginning to wonder if people posting have ever worked in other fields like retail or even design/build.”

Since when did design/build become another field?

[Anonymous]

Theodore – I think you’ve have the disgruntled/disenchanted thing right. After decades in the business working in large and small offices, I never met a landscape architect that wasn’t generally happy with the profession. Just about everyone has worked for a psycho-boss. You just work for the guy until you find another job. That’s just life, not the evil nature of landscape architects. It sounds like a B-Movie: A cult of evil, maniacal, landscape architects turn innocent youth into zombie like design slaves.

 

Man! Have we totally become a nation of wussies? Unions, yeah right! You won’t catch me standing shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of LAs that have no back bone.

[Pat S. Rosend]

I meant a non-office job like design/build. I did not mean to imply that it is not part of the LA realm. I have done both. I don’t see many design/build professionals complaining about hours  or pay. It is sell or be gone. Pretty simple. You change your perspectives about art and client input pretty quickly under those circumstances.

[Anonymous]

Dude – maybe it’s time to set sail for that wonderful place so that you can do what you really want to do. Russell I’m sure there’s a happy place for you.

 

If you feel the country is tanking and landscape architecture sucks, why not leave for greener pastures? It sure beats spewing negativity about landscape architecture on a site for landscape architects. Please, do yourself a favor.

[mark foster]

I may rant, but I don’t feel disgruntled or disenchised.  Far from it.  And that after 30 years. 

[David J. Chirico]

Trace, you need to learn how to not assert something about someone and then attack them for it.  Make a point, then argue for the point instead of denigrating people.  Please, or no one will listen to you.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Trace One.

 

You my friend are preaching to the choir. I think we pretty much agree with each other on this. Read before you get all “on your cause thing”. I’m for unions and workers rights. I’m just against people who whine and do nothing about the bad situation they find themselves in. What planet are you on?

 

I thought I was a liberal lefty leaning kind of fellow, but apparently I not. Maybe it’s because I would die to defend my rights to be treated fairly and make a decent wage as well as yours. I’ll do that but I won’t participate in a big giant pity party.

 

We’re not talking about caisson workers or miners back in 1860. We’re landscape architects in 2011. When was the last AutoCAD fatality at your office?

 

If you don’t like what you’re doing, pack your sensitive ass up and do something else. Done and done.

 

You would take manatee over me? Ouch, that really hurt my feelings. Dude, I would take you any day. Maybe I need to do some real soul searching 🙂

[Tim Kennedy]

I believe that the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) is the closest thing that LAs have to a union and, as such, is an important body.

[Anonymous]

I’m sorry but sitting around bad mouthing your chosen profession and not coming up with positive solutions and acting on them is weak and passive.

 

I just believe that if a person hates the situation they are in so much then do something about it. Otherwise you’re just a bitter person polluting the world with negativity. Nobody forced you to be a landscape architect. You have the freedom to do what will make you happy.

 

It makes no sense to me for a person to sit around in a pile of s–t and complain about being in a pile of s–t. Find a pile of something to sit in that’s more to your liking.

 

The condition of my brain, my talent and self-esteem has nothing to do with this. Get a life!

[Anonymous]

Mind your own business.

[mark foster]

Not all D/B firms are set up as “sell or be gone”.

[Thomas J. Johnson]

I’ve created a monster…

[Author]

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