The dualism of the profession of engineering

The Adani coal mine has been and continues to be a divisive issue - largely between those on the one hand who consider environmental impacts and ethical considerations take precedence over profit or even jobs, and those on the other hand who believe the economy trumps all, no matter what other problems may flow from it. 

This division is now becoming apparent in those engineering companies which have been working for Adani, as reported here, for instance.

Now, there is an engineering organisation which set standards for registration and conduct for engineers in Australia: Engineers  Australia, which was originally called the Institution of Engineers, Australia, or IEAust. (I'm from the IEAust era, so I'll keep using that reference.)

Although the IEAust has no official government backing, it does operate in accordance with a Royal Charter. It has a series of levels of membership, a National Engineering Register (which I am currently on, but the Victorian scheme is so problematic [including being potentially transphobic] that it may lead me to get out of the profession), requirements for continuing professional development, a Code of Ethics (there was a heated debate many years ago about adding Items 4.2 and 4.3, a debate which reflects the division I am writing about in this article), and a complaints procedure (which I once warned a long ago employer I was considering reporting them to: to show how far the engineering profession has come since then, the company I now work for even has an external [confidential] whistleblower channel).

The great mistake (or one of - the concept of criminalising conduct that is controlled by employers is another) the state based registration schemes make is creating an additional scheme, run by people who don't know anything about engineering, instead of compelling people to join and adhere to the IEAust requirements.

While I'm on mistakes, many engineers make the mistake of assuming that, if they are not members of the IEAust, the Code of Ethics will not apply to them. However, in any court case about their conduct that they may be involved with, the IEAust is a respected body, and their Code of Ethics will quite likely be taken by the court as a reasonable measure of how an engineer should conduct themselves.

The more conservative group in the engineering profession have the view that engineers should be like lawyers -  we should they argue, just be the next cab off the rank, and our role is not to question the reasons something is being done nor its consequnces, it is to ensure it is done in such a way that, for example, any building won't fall down (and the fatal collapse of a building in the Christchurch earthquake is one of the main drivers for the local registration scheme as far as the government is concerned; my opinion of the communication from engineering organisations is that it is about ego and status).

I suspect, however, that even that group doesn't realise that they may have limits. To make them aware of that, I'd be inclined to ask them if they would have been happy to be one of the engineers who designed the gas chambers at the nazi death camps - and they were engineer designed.

Against that, there is a group - which I'm part of - who are of the view that engineers must consider the broader implications of what they're doing - not only environmental, but also the impact on society. This is the view that those contentious additions to the Code of Ethics reflect, conditions copied below, and conditions which, by their inclusion, show that the conservatives lost that debate.

Their inclusion shows that engineers CANNOT abdicate responsibility for the flow-on effects of whatever they are designing.

4.2  Practise engineering to foster the health, safety and wellbeing of the community and the environment

• incorporate social, cultural, health, safety, environmental and economic considerations into the engineering task 

4.3  Balance the needs of the present with the needs of future generations

• in identifying sustainable outcomes consider all options in terms of their economic, environmental and social consequences
• aim to deliver outcomes that do not compromise the ability of future life to enjoy the same or better environment, health, wellbeing and safety as currently enjoyed

OK, so there are practical challenges. People need to live, and sometimes one may find oneself in the invidious position of either compromising one's principles or losing their job - and that can be a hard choice if one has dependents (see here and here on the challenges facing older people changing jobs [after four decades in this extremely competitive and, for most of my career, ultra-macho profession, I wouldn't mind changing - if I could continue to support my family], and here, one of my other blogs, about making sure your lifestyle doesn't make you vulnerable to such issues in the first place).

The failure to consider this and the business pressures that are pushing workplaces to lower staffing levels combined with increased performance (profit) pressures, combined with criminalising those who are not in charge or able to manage those issues (i.e., workers), is one of the problems with the local registration scheme.

For workers, the best thing is to make sure you can quit if you have to (and remember, failing to resist employers' pressure can result in you being jailed once the registration scheme comes in to force in my home state) - have ideally six months savings (and many people can't do that - including younger engineers), be careful about contract conditions, and talk openly, honestly, and respectfully about your concerns at an early stage.

I mentioned "younger engineers". My impression is that younger and, to some extent, middle aged engineers are more likely to be progressive and want to be responsible socially and environmentally. Few older engineers are like me and want to be progressive, but I'm not the only one, nor am I the oldest to think that way.

However, the older, more conservative engineers are going, I consider, to feel empowered and become more set in their ways by the registration scheme in my home state.

Where changes in society are of some help, however, is that many businesses are now becoming more progressive in their management. I recall the introduction of the dissent channel in the USA's diplomatic channel, when it happened, was quite controversial - but it was an essential step. More recently, the existence of such measures in tech companies has been of note - sometimes controversially, and the company I work for has, as mentioned, introduced a whistleblower scheme.

And now, as mentioned at the start of this post, we have some engineering companies experiencing disruption as some engineers object to conduct that may not comply with the IEAust Code of Ethics.

Ultimately, I consider the progressive voice will win. Apart from this incident, this year the engineering profession has seen the creation of things like https://engineersdeclare.org.au and www.prideinwater.com.au, acts which give me enormous pride in those (probably younger) engineers who are responsible for them, and hope, after four decades of what has often been hell, that the engineering profession can potentially get over it's attitudinal divisions and social regressiveness, and become something that is worth being proud of.

I would refer those conservative engineers who shudder at such developments to the following Franklin Delano Roosevelt quote:

"Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference."

That was about government, but the thought equally applies to a profession which is supposed to be about service, not ego.


PS - when I started roughing out this article, I initially conflated what I was trying to write about with another problem in engineering: the view that engineering can be reduced to being about doing work more cheaply than others can, Apart from the inherently ludicrous nature of that sentiment, it damages the profession when money is spent and doesn't work because it was too cheap. (On that, I often thought, in the 80s and 90s, that Australia could never have had space industry like the US had developed in the 60s because of the tight-fisted focus of the profession.) Furthermore, that attitude creates a "not spending money on my watch" syndrome which leads to continued deferral of spending, and, in my opinion, the current public transport shortcomings - it hasn't only been politicians and economists who led to that set of issues.