Building & Design Blog

And if that doesn't bring a lump to your throat, you're in the wrong profession!

Engineer is silent worker, who works in hostile envoirment to finish his job.He rarely gets recognised by general public for his achivements except a award by his own organisation. He does not bother to get personal exposer to media or public in general he is busy quitely finishing tasks assigned to him.

I would say that engineering is a respected and rewarding career. But when it comes time to hand out the accolades the sales types are always better at convincing others that it was their efforts that produced the results. There are reasons for this. Engineering tends to be a collaborative effort. Marketing and sales (and law) tend to be individualistic and competitive.

Net result is that engineers tend to be well off on average but very few good engineers get the perks that a good salesman will get.

We could get into outsourcing engineering to the lowest bidder as well, but I won't open that can of worms...

Does it really matter? There have been many unsung hero's among and in the profession. Most we will never know and a few we could have done without but on the whole with a little attention to detail from the birthingroom to the crematorium you will find us there, very few eco's could go green without us!

Does it matter? When you get laid off at the same time senior management is getting bonuses it matters.

Damn straight.

Here's a thought;

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if all engineers were unionized?

Not that I'm advocating it, it's just that engineers are notoriously poor self-promoters.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if all engineers were unionized?

To what end?

it's just that engineers are notoriously poor self-promoters

Isn't that part of what professional societies are for? A coordinated network of professionals to promote the interests of a specific discipline? Are you suggesting more of an umbrella society that covers al disciplines of engineering? I can imagine a huge organization that regulates education, licencing and placement of engineers in industry. One that has complete control of the supply of talent and so can control the price. Sounds a little like the original masonic order to me.

However, I would suggest engineers are better self promoters than physical sciences.

The US government early on made sure that unionization of engineering and sciences would not occur. This is why they set up some of the professional technical organizations themselves through acts of congress, e.g. American Chemical Society. The government realized early on in the unionization of industries that unions in science and engineering might severely adversely effect profits and slow business development and change the dynamic of wealth accumulation, and since advancements in these fields are necessary for the advancement of a society it represents is security risk to the country (and the wealthy families of that time), unlike construction, coal mining or automotive manufacturing which are mass production, use unskilled labor pulled from the masses, and only minorly effected profits to the owners relative to the popularity amongst the voting masses.

Professional societies do not really promote anything, and most of the engineering societies (like ASCE) appear to spend more effort promoting the marketing eforts and management of large engineering corporations than anything to do with the engineering. ASCE spend more effort on the most profitable and largest engineering corporations listings, trends in the business market, projects wins, etc., than they do on the actual project accomplishments. They make no distinction between marketers or managers who claim to be engineers and engineers, and thus they include the wages for all in their lists of pay scales. I have never heard of ASCE working to increase the technical professionals wages or benefits by actively lobbying congress (they don't even make a distinction between technical professionals, management and marketing/sales in the industry).

Unionization would promote higher wages amongst those technical professions, making it harder for marketing and management to retain mediocre staff from them to oversee their efforts and market their corporations. The truth is they need the technical professionals to do any work at all, but the management and marketing is a luxury to facilitate higher productivity amongst the technical professionals. If the technical professions were better wage earners, then who would do the management and marketing so the executives could waste corporate funds on their mistresses. Plus there are times when you need to hire someone to get the job done fast with out the overtime costs and such eating into your profits, unions tend to force stricter tiered pay scales relative to actual time worked and require better benefits than most corporations would like to be forced to provide (again you would be eating away at corporate profits and executive benefits, and as we know American executive are in a bad situation as it is).

Alternately, the down side is that unions tend to stiffle advancements as they see these as reducing union labor force employment (and their dues paid), and they tend to be highly corrupted by organized crime (though maybe a union of highly educated tehnical people might not be as susceptible as the trade unions to organized crime).

I will not recommend engineers being unionised. Unions, as per my experience had negative approaches such as :- 1. Only self interest not bothered about inconvinence to public in general or nation. 2. There had been political interference and exploitation by political parties. 3.Corrouption among union leaders. 4. In fights between unions. So I would suggest a International Institution of Engineers having local bodies and chapters. Purpose should be to promote Engineering Profession, built a network of engineers, conduct local meetings and social gatherings, collect funds for charitiable causes and helping students by giving scholarships, Giving awards for achivements by local engineers, liasioning with media for promotion of our profession. Well it is my wild thought others can give comments/ suggestions.

Are you describing union leaders or the management of any major corporation? In any major corporation I would think that a professionals union could be a good thing. Yes, any activity taken to extremes is counter-productive. On the other hand there does need to be some counterbalance to the senior managers of major corporations who, in general, act as their own union.

My observation has been that unions are at their worst when management is trying to have their bonuses whilst blaming the union for the ills of the company. The union will then react in the ways you describe.

In companies I've worked for that had "enlightened management," e.g. we really are a team, the goal is to be successful and the results for the stakeholders will follow; these are the companies that don't need unions.

In companies where the management is busy trying to manipulate the results to boost their bonuses - that's where unions are necessary.

Nobody is going to care for the engineers unless the engineers take care of themselves.

Dear Eric, I am narrating my 33 years working experience in engineering industries located in India. May be in your country or whereever you have worked unions were responsible and protecting the interest of employees. You are right if management is interested in filling only their pockets, then it is highly objectionable.In such situation union has to protect interest of all employees.. Suresh Sharma.

If memory serves (always a chancey proposition!) back when "engineering" meant "mechanics" and a good blacksmith or motor repairman qualified as an engineer, they had a craft guild (perhaps plural) that was/were the forerunner of both unions and professional associations. Due to both specialization and ratcheting up of qualifications, "we" kind of got away from that, but maybe the concept is once again valid. At least to the point of being worth discussion. Especially here, where we seem to have the fabric available for the creation of such a guild close at hand...

Opinions?

I suspect you would find too much resistance to such ideas, as any unionizing efforts amongst active professionals would cause issues for those in management who are relatively inactive but want the status and title (there are many times more engineers functioning as project managers than engineers, but still have the title). Additionally, companies use the title to retained skilled people for many non-engineering tasks, and do not want to restrict it to those tasks described by the State board let alone a union. On top of this, since the formation of unions began the US government has strongly opposed the formation of any professional guilds for technical professionals. Technical guilds would cause wage increases and issues much like the actors guilds, but since engineering is necessary for a society to advance, and art is not, the technical guilds would adversely effect the advancement of american business profits and society unless pay scales. You would create a change in society that does not favor the masses or wealthy business profits, and politicians need two things the favor of the masses and the favor of the very wealthy businesses. The dynamic could also change how wealth is acquired, moving more wealth towards the educated technical professionals and less towards sales/marketing/legal/ and artistic professions. Technical professionals are more skilled at managing money, and irrational spending is something modern governments depend on to keep the economy moving.

Fat paycheck!!!

Re. unions ... like for everything in this world, it's all contextual. Engineers at Atomic Energy Canada noticed in 70s-80s that technicians were getting big raises and that engineers weren't. After this had gone on for years, the engineers unionized and got a fairer deal out of it.

They went on strike once in the 90s (pay again, I think, and maybe pensions), but apart from that things stayed pretty quiet.

Cheers! DZ

Keep in mind that jocks and nerds (including engineers) rule the world. Really, they do ...

One extreme case is China. Ever noticed the very high percentage of top political bosses there who are engineers? Hu Jintao, the current Head Honcho is one. So was Zhu Rongzhi. And many other El Almost Supremos are, too.

This makes eminent sense in controlled economies ... people who 'think properly' by training and inclination (which means professionals in general, with emphasis on technical ones) are favoured . Doesn't make for a democratic and long-term-stable society ("Listen, you. I'm telling you to do this because I really DO know better than you; and it's for your own benefit, too!")

China ... THE great example of a society being grown and developed as explicitly planned by engineers.

Cheers! DZ

They used to rule the world, now it are the accountants who rule it.

Why do you think that BP keeps on failing to solve the problem with the oil spill? (or even why did it happen after all?)

To much financial driven decisions.

When real engineers would have decided they wouldn't be drilling in deep waters. way to complex and risky.