RKD Architects hiring now (€50 / week)

9 new staff members for €450 / week.

The profession is going from bad to worse

As far as I know FAS is paying that 50 euro so you can have 9 workers for free.
Following the topic – on RIAI website “award winning practice” Aughey O’Flaherty Architects is offering Work Placement Position (for free again). And in my opinion non of this positions will be filled by young graduate who needs to get some experience, as there are hundreds better experienced people willing to get that “jobs”. Patetic.

I used to know a person at RKD wonder if they still there…

@Aseek wrote:

Following the topic – on RIAI website “award winning practice” Aughey O’Flaherty Architects is offering Work Placement Position (for free again). And in my opinion non of this positions will be filled by young graduate who needs to get some experience, as there are hundreds better experienced people willing to get that “jobs”. Patetic.

Nope a gradute isn’t going to get a look-in when they want an Architect, experience as a project architect is preferable

Q – We appreciate you have chosen not to provide a budget for this project. Can you however provide any indication on the scale of funding available to help guide us on the level of detail it will be possible to provide for each element?

A – We are not in a position to provide budget details except to state that it is a national tender so the therefore the value is between €25k – €193k. It is up to each company that responds to provide their best offer in relation to our requirements

The internship involves someone getting social welfare retaining this social welfare payment and, in addition, getting paid – in theory – 50 bucks more a week for working

Obviously €50 a week is not going to shift any unemployed person off their hole unless they are really, REALLY, bored
RKD have a big job and need staff. A student just out of college is, in reality, of little or no use in the current climate to a company like that. What they need is experienced staff who are currently “at leisure” but, as above, 50 bucks ain’t gonna do it. €50 is a decoy.

What happens, therefore, is that a company such as RKD, through FAS, agree to pay an experienced person €x00 a week. In effect they pay them €x00 minus the employee’s social welfare payment that they will continue to get anyway which suits the employee as they pay less tax. The company in question only has to pay PRSI on their own portion of the €x00 which suits the company as they pay less tax. The employee, despite remaining on social welfare, is taken off the live register, which suits the government.

A further benefit to the company is that they can afford to employ someone for longer thanks to the portion that you and me pay, via our taxes, through the social. Hence a 9 month internship is cheaper than a 5 month contract for the company. It is more expensive, however, for the taxpayer.

Those of us who continue to work as before get doubly shafted as we subsidise the company in question AND pay the social welfare o f the person who is getting paid to work whilst also being paid to be unable to take another job.

It’s a con, a tax-break, a smoke and mirrors exercise that ultimately, tax payers cover. There’s no doubt that students and graduates will be caught up in this and exploited but, ultimately, the companies that take advantage of this, has bigger fish to fry

Another point is how to compete with company that employ 9 free workers if you have to pay for yours. Wonder how much RKD could cut off their prices with free support.

I don’t think you get it

A student just out of college is, in reality, of little or no use in the current climate to a company like that. What they need is experienced staff who are currently “at leisure” but, as above, 50 bucks ain’t gonna do it. €50 is a decoy.
What happens, therefore, is that a company such as RKD, through FAS, agree to pay an experienced person €x00 a week.

But the whole internship idea has always been purely aimed at recent graduates, just to give their resumés a lick of experience, isn’t it ?
There is no sense in subsidising salaries of seasoned architects : otherwise every other sector would then demand the same degree of subsidy and that isn’t on.
Subsidising experienced staff pay would also serve to accelerate the existing trend of strong firms outcompeting the weaker ones for whatever work was there — you could say goodbye to the 1/2 person practice under this scheme.

Oh, let’s forget all this and dream of castles in the air.

I’ve noticed more and more of these work placement things, kind of abuse of the situation! Surely if they have work they have an income and can afford to pay staff a wage, like they did “when things were good”.

At least at 50 a week your getting a few quid extra, still disgraceful tbh.

A student just out of college is, in reality, of little or no use in the current climate to a company like that. What they need is experienced staff who are currently “at leisure” but, as above, 50 bucks ain’t gonna do it. €50 is a decoy.
What happens, therefore, is that a company such as RKD, through FAS, agree to pay an experienced person €x00 a week.

I disagree with that statement. Could you elaborate on why a recent graduate would be of no use in the current climate, as a Technologist who has worked for a big office during and after college I never felt like I was of little or no use.

“Work Experience” has become a big issue for the Architectural Association of Ireland, many of whose members are Part II’s struggling to get the right kind of work to make their Part II submissions and Part III’s running their own small practices struggling to compete against subsidized larger practices.

The President of the RIAI Douglas Carson has written about this at some length and I append the text of his letter below.

As for your comment about being a technologist Jozi, I too was useful – in demand even – the day after I qualified.
In my fourth year (Architects do five) I had already designed a 40,000 sq.ft office block and it got permission.
I was joined to a larger firm by the sole practitioner who had got the job to see it to site – a lot of use.

Still, I had taken the scenic route through college, and was in my late twenties when I qualified.
I had worked on building sites learning the tricks of many trades and the limits of detailing.
So in some ways I was unusual and still had a lot to learn, but I was useful to the practice.

ONQ.

http://architecturalassociation.ie/blog/comments/an-open-letter-to-the-riai-board-and-members-from-the-aai-committee-may-201/

An open letter to the RIAI Council and Members from the AAI Committee, May 2011
Written by Douglas on 03-05-11 | Categories: Architecture

To whom it may concern,

The Committee of the Architectural Association of Ireland is deeply concerned over the current level of recognition and reward given to those that make architecture happen.

The AAI, which since 1896 has existed as a forum for those interested in the culture of architecture, sees some of our members who work within the profession exploited through low or no pay. This unacceptable behaviour carried out by employers appears concurrent with a trend in architects’ own acceptance of unsustainably low professional fees and the proliferation of ‘free-consultations’. Through this exploitation and the ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of fees the profession is complicit in nurturing a society where architecture is undervalued.

Justification from some within the profession is that one must work without pay to gain experience. We disagree. If one’s work has a value, either as investment in a practice through competitions and research, or in the conventional production of design documents for paying clients, one should be fairly paid. If not, the message given to society at large is that the work required to make architecture happen has little or no value.

While it is not in society’s interests that the practice of architecture in Ireland becomes exclusive to those from particular social strata, it would seem that due to the current tendency towards unpaid internships, only those with sufficient financial support have the opportunity to gain the experience required to progress. Those from lower-income backgrounds with understandable pressure to earn a wage following what is an already lengthy education, are excluded outright. Furthermore, young emerging practices cannot compete with those practices backed by years of very healthy yields, who are
now offering a degree of free work or work ‘at a loss’.

Thankfully one member of the RIAI, Dublin-born architect Angela Brady and President-Elect of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), is contesting this sub-culture and is standing up for better values in architecture. The current RIBA President, Ruth Reed is already overseeing the enforcement of statutory minimum pay for all working students from this July and President-Elect Brady has vowed to continue this work through a zero-tolerance approach to practices that break these rules.

The AAI committee would welcome such development within the Irish profession. As such, we will be asking our members to sign a declaration on fair pay on their next submission to the annual AAI Awards. We call on the RIAI to join us in this stance for better values by ratifying and implementing the following:

• Following immediate consultation with all stakeholders, to establish rules on minimum pay and hold to account those practitioners who ignore these rules
• To make mandatory a signed declaration, for all competition and award submissions, that all employees used in the production of those submissions have been paid according to these rules
• To actively publicise Architectural Graduate Member status to all students and reduce the prohibitive cost of graduate membership
• Compile a complete register of all architectural graduates with the view to formalising all paid experience prior to professional examinations.

In summary, the value of architecture in our society and the values within the profession are under threat. It is from all those values combined that a built legacy will emerge. Hopefully, that legacy will be considered as a great gift given to the generations to come rather than a burden to be borne by them.

The architectural profession has a key responsibility in that story. We look forward to discussing how these proposals might be implemented at the next RIAI council meeting.

Kind regards,

The AAI Committee
President: Douglas Carson
Site Visits Officer: Fergus Naughton
Hon. Treasurer: Joa Van Wyk
Ex-Officio: Hugo Lamont
Cultural Liaison Officer: Ellen Rowley
Honorary Secretary: Conor McGowan
2nd Year Competition Officer: Alice Clancy
Programme Officer: Kate Gannon
Membership Officer: Colm Dunbar
Website Officer: Dariusz Cyparski
Building Material Editor: Stephen Mulhall
Awards & Exhibition Officer: Paddy Cahill

It’s not just architecture graduates that are getting these sorry “offers”.

Computer science graduates, no less, are having these paltry sub-dole wages offered to them for a flat-out
project contract . . . . . by their alma mater :

http://www.cs.nuim.ie/noticeboard/notice.php?noticeid=189

The building regs won~t ensure your looked after… take a look in the mirror…

@teak wrote:

It’s not just architecture graduates that are getting these sorry “offers”.

Computer science graduates, no less, are having these paltry sub-dole wages offered to them for a flat-out
project contract . . . . . by their alma mater :

http://www.cs.nuim.ie/noticeboard/notic … ticeid=189

This is at €250/week which is five times the amount…still not very good but a lot better.