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Last Tuesday, employees protested outside the Danish star architecture firm BIG’s office in London together with their trade union in the UK. The protesters demanded that the company recognise their union, and shouted “Shame on BIG!”
The three letters stand for Bjarke Ingels Group. The firm is known for buildings in smooth concrete and glass in almost every conceivable shape and has offices around the world, from London to New York and Shanghai. In 2024, the practice had global revenue of more than one billion kroner, and in the UK BIG reported a profit of more than £2.2 million. That corresponds to just over 19 million kroner.
During the demonstration, one of the top executives in Danish architecture came out of the office building in London. She held her phone up towards the protesters and filmed them as she walked around them. This is shown in several videos in Danwatch’s possession.
Private recordings from the demonstration outside BIG’s office in London on Tuesday, 3 February.
The woman with the phone is BIG’s CEO, Sheela Maini Søgaard. She was named Leader of the Year by the Danish trade union Lederne in 2022. At the time, one of the jury members said:
“Under her leadership, employees thrive and are encouraged to let creativity flourish wildly.”
However, she and the management have been in conflict with employees at the London office for almost three months now, according to Joseph Elbourn.
He is a representative of the Section of Architectural Workers, also known as SAW, the architects’ branch of the British trade union, Unite the Union.
Major round of redundancies looming after a cancelled project
According to Joseph Elbourn, the protests against management began when BIG announced a major round of redundancies around 1 December last year.
“BIG’s largest project in London, which employed around half of the practice’s total 203 employees, was unfortunately halted with immediate effect in November 2025,” BIG explains to Danwatch.
The company states that a total of 76 employees will be affected.
According to Joseph Elbourn, the redundancies are an expression of what he calls a “hire-and-fire culture”, which he believes is typical of large companies in the construction industry:
“These companies who do mass redundancies at the end of a project always get the reward, whereas we (employees, ed.) are expected to take the risk. We are expected to go as soon as the project goes,” he says, adding,
“Construction in this country, especially in London, makes millions and billions. And yet we (architects, ed.) are some of the worst paid people in the sector and have some of the most fragile contracts.”
Joseph Elbourn also accuses BIG of running an opaque process, which he believes is skirting the edge of UK employment law. The union, one of the UK’s largest, also says it has received several reports of intimidation of employees who have engaged with the union.
As an example, Joseph Elbourn points to Sheela Maini Søgaard’s behaviour during the demonstration,
“Videoing every worker who went out on a perfectly legal protest and a perfectly legal expression of their discontent with the management, I think that is a form of intimidation.”
The architecture firm writes to Danwatch, “BIG will never restrict employees’ right to be members of a trade union, and we are accustomed to working with unions from our practice in Denmark.”
In a personal comment, Sheela Maini Søgaard writes,
“It is correct that I was at the London office during the demonstration. I briefly filmed banners and Unite the Union’s messages in order to brief BIG’s board, who was not present. The purpose of documenting 3-4 minutes of the hour-long demonstration was not to intimidate employees or anyone else. I am, of course, sorry if it has been perceived that way.”
Call for union recognition
According to Joseph Elbourn, employees have repeatedly asked the architecture firm to recognise the British trade union, so that a union representative will be officially consulted in connection with the redundancies.
BIG has not yet formally recognised a trade union in the UK, the company says, adding,
“We have stated that any employee is free to seek advice from a trade union and to bring a union representative to individual meetings.”
However, the fact that employees can now bring union representatives to meetings does not mean that the union will be officially consulted and given formal influence during the redundancy process. This is explained by Professor of Labour Law at the University of Edinburgh, David Cabrelli.
“If the employer proposes to make more than 20 employees redundant it imposes a legal requirement on the employer to inform and then consult representatives,” he says, adding,
“If there’s no trade union recognized by the employer, then it will not be trade union representatives who are informed and consulted.”
Instead, “12 representatives have been elected who are in dialogue with management in the ongoing process,” BIG writes to Danwatch, adding that the company generally “has followed all the rules prescribed in the market.”
Offer of a voluntary severance scheme and a meeting invitation
Nevertheless, According to Joseph Elbourn from the architects’ branch of Unite the Union, employees have achieved two things through their protests:
“The main success of the demonstration and bringing this out into the media has been the management has now confirmed that they are going to offer at least two months’ pay to anyone that’s made redundant, be that on a voluntary basis” he says.
BIG confirms this offer to Danwatch.
However, Joseph Elbourn believes the agreement is being offered on unreasonable terms:
“The first time our solicitor saw the offer was late on Wednesday evening (last week, ed.), and the workers are expected to sign it on Monday (this week, ed.). The guidance in the UK on this is the parties should have ten days to consider. They have now moved the deadline for signing to this Friday, which is still less than ten days,” he says, adding
“It is a tiny thing. But, it is representative of how they have been during the process. They are much more interested in rushing forward than in following due procedure”
In response, BIG writes,
“The scheme was first communicated to employees on 2 February 2026. Employees have therefore had a total of 18 days to review the offer.”
Professor notes the date
Joseph Elbourn also states that SAW has now received a meeting invitation from BIG to discuss possible recognition of the union,
“They have offered us a meeting about it, but only on the condition that it would be after the redundancies, and no earlier than April.”
The fact that the meeting will not be held until April is something Professor of Labour Law, David Cabrelli, particularly notes.
He explains that, under current UK law, it requires a longer process if employees and the union wish to try to force a recognition. First, they must apply to a legal body, called the Central Arbitration Committee. Then, they must hold a vote in which more than 40 per cent of employees must cast a ballot.
“It is quite a long process. And only if the Central Arbitration Committee are satisfied, will they force the employer to recognize the union.,” he says.
However, this will change as of 6 April this year. The UK government has just passed a new law,
“From April 6th, because og the change in law coming in then, the procedure would be a lot more straightforward. The union would hold the ballot with just a simple majority vote in favor. And then the Central Arbitration Committee would have to force the employer to recognize the union,” David Cabrelli explains.
“They (BIG, ed.) will have to deal with the union under the new rules. So what the Danish architectural firm is doing is quite clever. They know that they have to dismiss these 76 workers before April 6th, sooo they can avoid consulting with the union about the redundancies.”
On that note, David Cabrelli calls BIG’s invitations to the union a kind of “fig leaf”,
“They say ‘Come on to the consultation meetings’. But they (the union, ed.) are not coming along legally as a trade union representative for consultation purposes under the legislation. But in the spirit of goodwill. Because they (the employee, ed.) know that from April they will have to deal with them (the Union, ed.).
“We will, of course, go to that meeting and hope to work this out with a collaborative voluntary agreement agreement,” says Joseph Elbourn.
BIG writes to Danwatch that, “a formal recognition of a trade union entails a separate and thorough process, which we wish to handle properly and in accordance with the applicable law.”
The company states that, at the time of writing, it is in the process of finalising 51 voluntary resignations on the basis of the offered severance package.
BIG has not yet confirmed which project the practice lost. According to the media outlet, Architects Journal, it concerns a major Dead Sea resort in Saudi Arabia. Here, BIG has been involved in the mega-project Red Sea Global, which, according to sources, will halt construction later this year, New Straits Times writes.
