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LIAISON REPORTS

REPORT FROM NPSS LIAISON TO THE SOCIETY FOR SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY

Online Center for Ethics in Engineering and Science
A small group of SSIT and IEEE members continue to advise inquirers who send email queries about ethics concerns in the workplace to the Online Center (http://www.onlineethics.org). The queries come from engineers employed by many different industries, consulting engineers, professionally licensed engineers, students and graduate students. One of the most common complaints is from graduate students whose advisors plagiarize their work, or publish it under their own name with the student unawares until it appears in print. A common complaint from civil and construction engineers is the customer trying to play loose with the laws concerning proper signoff of engineer-certified documentation, including one case of forgery. Others have been asked by their employers to fudge test data that in effect would falsely qualify faulty parts back to the customer, who is typically the government. Several cases of serious product problems, when brought to the employer, resulted in a cover-up that the inquirer refused to be a part of, and in one case a lawsuit was brought by legal authorities to make the employer comply.

Often in these cases the inquirer is operating from the position of having just been fired for his ethical behavior. Many inquirers simply want clarification of their options when caught in these kinds of difficulties. The inquirers are never identified to the advisors nor the advisors back to the inquirer. Advisory opinions are solicited and a response from the collective group crafted by the Director of the Center, and approved by the group before responding. Overall the system is doing a good service and has had no problems. This is the same kind of operation that the IEEE Board of Directors killed a few years ago because of "legal liability concerns", followed by a summary firing of the core of the Ethics Committee halfway through their terms, the author being one so honored.

IEEE Ethics Committee
In addition to the Online Center, there is an active discussion group that continues to air ethics issues, and continues to track IEEE’s Ethics efforts. Since the above-mentioned event the Ethics Committee has been notably quiet and uncommunicative. Lately a few small personal opinion articles have appeared in The Institute. Last year the IEEE Ethics Committee was merged with the IEEE Member Conduct Committee, to make the EMCC, presumably for administrative streamlining purposes. This body reports directly to the BoD. Some of the EMCC members are occasionally part of the discussion group.

There are some hopefuls in the discussion group who believe EMCC can be swayed to do useful service. A recent Spectrum article by Jack Casazza criticizing the power engineers who colluded with Enron and others to devise creative ways to rip off consumers and governments, especially in California where it’s likely to cause the governor his job, stirred a lively discussion. Some proposed that perhaps the EMCC should be given wider powers to pursue members in corporate positions for unethical behavior toward the public trust that we all swear to uphold in our IEEE Code of Ethics. A large number of discussants, voicing a large number of opinions, some openly strident and hostile, eventually arrived at a consensus that giving expanded punitive powers to a committee that in fact had fiercely resisted doing anything supportive -even as minor as giving friendly advice - for people who did uphold the Ethics code, should now be encouraged to hunt out offending members within corporations with punishment in mind, seemed bizarre in the extreme. In the author’s opinion, the outlook for any significant changes in the fortress mentality of IEEE in regard to Ethics support appears less than dim.

IEEE-USA and Engineering Employment
Just in the past couple of weeks there has been a furor developing over industry plans to outsource millions of (mostly IT) jobs in the next decade. For a summary of the problem see the New York Times article of July 22, 2003, online at http://www.nytimes.com2003/07/22/technology/22JOBS.html?th regarding IBM’s particular plans and philosophy. This and similar news in the past few weeks caused the discussion to veer off into ethical issues within industry, government and the IEEE over outsourcing and bringing short term visitor employees ("Guest Workers") into the country. These short-termers are often the harbinger of teaching the home industry techniques to a new group offshore, who then leave taking jobs along with them, often followed by immediate cutbacks at home. There are obviously many difficult issues and forces and counter-forces at work. IEEE-USA fired a salvo this week about skilled worker job loss at home potentially crippling long-range competitiveness as well as national security. Some of the discussion group instantly voted to circle the wagons, cancel the H1B and L1 visas, and pull up the drawbridges, and also bewailed IEEE-USA for doing nothing. One discussant from IEEE-USA staunchly defended their efforts, and if they were too small it was because of a lack of commitment of time and money by the volunteers who are doing the complaining, as well as an apathetic IEEE management and membership at large. The author offered an opinion first that a certain amount of outsourcing is entirely consistent with IEEE’s transnational goals, but that if people felt so strongly about more effort by IEEE-USA on their behalf they should lobby IEEE-USA to set up a voluntary fund they could contribute to for lobbying efforts, and they could volunteer to help mobilize more people who care in a writing campaign to their elected representatives.

Is There a Union in our Future?
The subject of professional unions also was brought up in discussion until cut off by some who felt it out of order. Engineers react against unions, but some say that if they want job protection and better regulation of credentials etc., this is what they need. This led to taking a look at IEEE, which is so diverse that it’s very hard to find a "PE" kind of engineer anymore, to ask how effective it could be as a kind of union if it so chose. This quickly died. Many members are from other scientific fields or from other countries where rules about degrees and licensing are all over the map. It seems impossible to drag IEEE backwards to fit into a simpler picture of what the "Electrical and Electronic" industries looked like forty years ago, as much as that might be welcomed by some of us old boys. Recognizing this, it seemed agreed that if one ever did want a "Professional Union", that it would have to be a new entity entirely outside of IEEE. Incidentally there is an interesting website for the "Oregon Association of Technology Professionals", http://www.ortech.org. This is an Association, not a union, and it appears to have been started by a couple of software types. They mention IEEE as being inadequate to represent the kind of concerns they have. (I was all ready to sign up until I read the part that rules out anyone with hire/fire authority.) Another organization mentioned in the NYTimes article is the "Washington Alliance of Technical Workers", http://www.washtec.org, in the state of Washington, which is trying to organize IT technology workers under the umbrella of the 700,000-member "Communications Workers of America", http://www.cwa-union.org, which clearly is a union and does not seem to stress the word "Professional." Oregon Association of Technology Professionals claims to have been inspired by WATC, but is aimed at professionals who want collaboration on workplace issues but not a union.

What About the Future?
Listening to all of the somewhat strained conversations of the past few weeks, and the clear worries that many have about job security, ethics support and the lack thereof, protectionism, the role of IEEE-USA to promote the needs of 275,000 U.S. engineers preferentially to the global IEEE members etc., I posited the following questions to myself:

What kind of professional organizations will best serve the ever-more closely interconnected global community and global public interests?

Can IEEE be adapted to serve well in a world that on the one hand espouses increased "Free Trade" partnerships to promote peace and prosperity, and on the other hand pre-emptive wars against terrorism that identify other countries (and their IEEE members) as the epitome of evil and distrust?

I rather quickly concluded that we need an organization that is truly international in organization, representation and scope of interests, serving an international public with quality as well as equality. The IEEE is a U.S. Corporation that has been very successful in the global marketplace in terms of attracting members, but as an exclusively U.S. corporation it is constrained transnationally in addressing professional concerns like ethical conflict between members and their employers, professional standing in the public arena, professional employment tensions between labor, government and business, and professional involvement in the local and national debate. IEEE is a wonderful organization that serves well as a force for education, publication, standards and conferences involving cooperative effort among practicing engineers and scientists worldwide, but it cannot escape its U.S.-Centric roots and image as an ally of U.S. business. It will continue in its present role that it does very well, but some areas are out of reach.

I have begun a personal effort to write down some of the features I would like to see in a Professional Engineer and Scientist organization that can address a winde range of transnational as well as national issues. If anyone would like to be part of this discussion, at your own risk, please contact the author to get on an email list.

Ray Larsen can be reached at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, MS 66, Stanford, CA 94309; Phone +1 650 926-4907; Fax: +1 650 926-5124; E-mail: rslarsen@coastside.net

Ray Larsen
NPSS Liaison to SSIT

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