ENGM 604: Social, Legal and Ethical Considerations for Engineering Employee Rights and Responsibilities

A Conflict of Values As we have noted before, the professional responsibilities of engineers can conflict with other role responsibilities they have. One important potential conflict arises in the context of employment. As the PROMIS example (181-2) demonstrates, your obligations as employees are not always consistent with your obligations as engineers.

Negotiating the Conflict: The Codes As always, the codes of ethics of the engineering professional organizations are a good place to start thinking about how to address possible conflicts of this sort. Consider the “Fundamental Cannons” of the NSPE code (376). –Cannon 4 specifies the character of the obligation engineers owe to their employers. –Now consider possible conflicts between this obligation and those specified by Cannons 1-3.

Negotiating the Conflict: The Codes Unfortunately, though the code reveals a number of possible conflicts, it doesn’t do much to help engineers negotiate these conflicts. The discussion of “Rules of Practice” and “Professional Obligations” helps, but a number of important questions still remains.

Conceptual Issues For example, though the codes requires engineers to “Hold paramount the safety…of the public,” it leaves open the question of who counts. –Possible answers range from everybody, to those impacted by the decision, to just the key company stakeholders.

Application Issues Even if we could come to some agreement about the meaning of an operative concept, we still would be faced with the hard work of determining the extension of the concept in practice. –If we define ‘public’ relative to being impacted, we would still need to consider how to practically distinguish impact in a way that would guide our decision.

Negotiating the Conflict: The Law Another resource that can help us understand our responsibilities is the law. As we’ve already noted, the law is an imperfect guide to our moral obligations, but the law does often reflect our considered moral judgment and thus can be of some use. An additional challenge is that the law in this area is in a state of flux.

The Law of the Land: At-Will Employment The vast majority of employees in the United States are governed by the legal principle of “Employment at Will.” –This is not the case in most of Europe and parts of Asia and Africa and Central and South America. One common exception to this here in the U.S. is what has become known as the “Public-Policy Exception.” –This principle provides some protection for workers who act in the public interest.

Limits of the Public-Policy Exception In general, courts have ruled very narrowly on the exception, limiting it to only the most obvious or serious cases. One reason for this is that it is hard to distinguish a dismissal for private and public interests. If it comes down to a difference in judgment, the courts typically rule in favor of the business. The courts have observed a difference between government regulation and the constraints of professional codes. The overall thrust seems towards a balance of private and public interests.

Statutory Protection The other common legal principle which governs employment are explicit statutes which grant certain protections to workers. Laws protecting “Whistle Blowing” are a common example of these, though there are a number of states which protect a wider range of employee rights.

Managers and Engineers When we turn from the legal context to the organizational context, the difficulty that appears is the potentially contentious relationship between managers and professional employees. The ground of the potential conflict is obvious. Both managers and professionals are used to and expect both decision-making authority and deference. The ethical question that arises in this context is: when should either party or interest prevail.

Additional Sources of Conflict In addition to their expectations, managers and engineers have other challenges to negotiate in a shared workplace. –Different Loyalties –Difficult Communication –Aspirations These challenges largely confirmed by empirical study. It should be noted that these challenges need not be fatal.

Functions in Conflict One of the ways that the potential conflicts between managers and engineering professionals can be addressed is by attending to the proper functioning of both. It is likely that a large class of potential conflicts could be traced back to a failure to maintain appropriate functional distinctions.

PED vs. PMD We can understand the functional differences by recognizing that there are different standards and objectives motivating managers and engineers. These differences prompt the editors of the book to make a useful distinction (191) between Proper Engineering Decisions (PEDs) and Proper Management Decisions (PMDs).

Implications of Distinguishing PED and PMD Principle of distinction is the operative standards and practices. PMD acknowledges the significance and force of professional standards and practices. PED and PMD are mutually reinforcing.

The Value of Loyalty In the context of discussions of employee rights and responsibilities, loyalty is a central concept. Without assuming completeness, any discussion of loyalty should distinguish between Uncritical Loyalty from Critical Loyalty. While UL is often advocated by managers, the book demonstrates the weakness of the argument in its favor, ultimately underling the moral superiority of CL

Loyalty as Organizational Disobedience The doctrine of CL sometimes requires employees to act in a way contrary to the expectations or stated objectives of their employer. This can happen in at lest three different ways: Disobedience by Contrary Action Disobedience by Nonparticipation Disobedience by Protest

Articulating Employee Rights Recognizing the legitimacy of these forms of disobedience can lead us to articulate specific rights that employees have. The book identifies a number of important considerations in this regard. –Focus on Issues, not personalities –Paper Trail –Confidentiality –Dispute resolution mechanisms –Protection from retaliation –Speedy resolution