Abstract:
US engineering professional societies have been influential institutions that propagate a
constricted understanding of the roles and responsibilities of an engineer within society by
upholding an alignment of industry over engineering reflective of a hegemonic adherence to
business professionalism. The ideology of business professionalism, described in more
detail to follow, advances beliefs that engineers are, and should be, unshakably beholden to
capitalist corporate owners and the industries they extract profit through. In this paper, we
examine the historically anti-union attitudes and actions of the National Society of Professional
Engineers (NSPE), and their adherence to the ideology of business professionalism, through
analysis of ethics case studies published by their Board of Ethical Review (BER). As an advocate
of professional engineering licensure and as leaders in engineering ethics standards, NSPE’s
consistent anti-union stance lays bare a clear bias to the needs of industry and the capitalist mode
of production at the expense of the collective bargaining power of engineers as workers. NSPE is
an influential organization in the codification of engineering rules of practice, so it is valuable to
deconstruct their application of their code of ethics to justify anti-union arguments.
See publication:
https://peer.asee.org/engineering-ethics-and-unionization-challenging-nspe-s-positions-on-engineers-relationship-with-labor-unionsThis publication pertains to:
Learning and EngagementPublication Authors:
- Lazlo Stepback
- Joseph Valle