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Union Push for Engineers? President of N a t i o n a l Society of Professional En gineers says AFL a n d CIO are out to unionize engineers, believes the move " b o d e s no g o o d " for U. S. engineers npRADE UNIONS have evidently em•*- barked on a planned campaign to unionize professional engineers, accord ing to Clarence T. Shoch, president of the National Society of Professional Engineers. Shoch says that high level official spokesmen of the two giant labor federations Ijave made it clear that they regard professional engineers as part of the labor force. Meany Article. Speaking before a conference in Champaign, 111., of presi dents of state organizations, represent ing member state groups of NSPE, Shoch cited an article in the March 1955 issue of The American Federationist, official publication of the Ameri can Federation of Labor. Written by AFL president George Meany, the ar ticle says, in part: There is no doubt . . . concerning the value of the professional engineer ing societies and their interest in main taining the high ethical standards that the engineering profession has set for itself. Every professional engineer concedes that these great societies and associations have assumed the responsi bilities for the promotion of the art and science of engineering and the de velopment of engineering practices. . . . In recent years, however, many of the professional engineering societies have tended to inject themselves into the field of labor-management rela tions. Many . . . have printed long dissertations on w h y a professional en gineer or technician should not become a member of a union. Most of these articles have advanced the following arguments: "Joining a union is undignified or de grading." "Unions are only for manual work ers." "Engineers are more closely identi fied with management than with labor." Some of these articles have been written by professors of engineering in colleges and universities, while others have been contributed by men who are of high rank and position in large en gineering corporations or well known in engineering consulting firms. None of the articles has taken into consideration the attitude and feelings of the hundreds of thousands of engi neers and technicians employed for wages or salaries by government or private business. The economic interests of these em ployees, who constitute the large ma jority of those in the profession, have 1570
been almost completely neglected by professional societies. . . . The engineer finds that h e is close to the bottom of the wage and salary scale, considering t h e work h e does. His education and years of experience seem to count for nothing. Then h e pauses and reflects; for almost three generations the professionally trained engineers . . . have been waiting for the professional engineering societies to make even a gesture in their behalf, but the meetings of these groups sel dom make any reference to the eco nomic status of this wage-earning class of members. Representatives of management gen erally hold all the high offices in these societies, even though t h e financial support that maintains these groups is drawn mainly from the wage- and salary-earning engineers a n d techni cians. Under pressure from trie economic circumstances in which t h e y find them selves, more and more engineers are turning for assistance to the recog nized union composed exclusively of men a n d women working for wages in the engineering profession. This union is the American Federation of Techni cal Engineers. T h e remainder of the article dis cusses the aims and accomplishments of this union. Carey Speech. The other labor spokesman Shoch cites is James B. Carey, secretary treasurer, CIO. In a recent speech at the annual engineers' day at Drexel Institute of Technology, Carey referred to a study of the com parative progress made by three groups five years after graduation: The starting salary of t h e engineer ing graduates was tops; $274 compared with a starting wage of $263 for the commerce graduates and $254 for t h e liberal arts men. . . . But it's what has h a p p e n e d to these same graduates today . . . that proves conclusively (to me, at least) that you fellows need a union, a n d need it badly. Today those same engineers who re ceived $274 to start with are getting an average of $607 a month. But t h e commerce graduates . . . are now drawing an average of $666 a month, and t h e liberal arts . . . now receive an average of $679. . . .
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Carey then turned to a strike in 1953 in L o n g Island City and in Brooklyn where more than 5000 members of the IUE-CIO employed by t h e Arma Corp. CHEMICAL
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I t was a bitter strike . . . b u t it ended i n complete victory. . . . O n e of the chief reasons . . . was the fact—unprecedented in this large company's history—that 7 0 0 profes sional engineers refused to violate t h e I U E - C I O s picket lines. T h e s e 700 professionals . . . were members of t h e Engineers' Association of A r m a . I t was an impressive demonstration, but it had a n even more impressive sequel. Almost immediately after . . . the Engineers' Association was forced out on strike by the same man agement and for virtually t h e same rea sons. . . . Our union a t Arma an nounced they would not take a step in side t h e Engineers' picketline. . . . T h e engineers' strike lasted only over the weekend, and concluded with a wage increase and other benefits, plus preservation of the union shop which management h a d attempted t o take away from t h e Engineers. T h e meaning of the Arma strike for companies employing b o t h production workers and engineers was studied b y employers from coast to coast. T h e two disputes and t h e reciprocal assist ance of the groups represented a new high water mark i n trie trend toward collective action b y professional engi neers. T h e Arma story is n o isolated in stance. Increasingly, for example, en gineers have organized themselves into local unions of t b e I U E - C I O , which have been particularly successful at such places a s t h e Ford Instrument plant of Sperry Corporation, a n d at Federal Telephone a n d Telegraph Company, Nutley, New Jersey. Some of y o u here may even b e mem bers of a national organization known as t b e Engineers a n d Scientists of America which is less than t w o years old b u t already represents more than 40,000 engineers a n d scientists em ployed by U . S. corporations. Shoch's Conclusions. T h e recent AFL-CIO merger, plus the current in terest of leaders of t h e two groups, could mean an all-out effort t o bring professional engineers into existing t r a d e unions, Sboch believes. H e adds: Tbere is n o half-way mark in t h e unionization of t h e engineering pro fession. W e will either maintain our professional standing as individuals, working through our engineering soci eties and associations, or w e will go all t h e w a y d o w n the path of unionism. It seems clear that the professional engineers . . . are going t o face a barrage of propaganda from t h e trade unions. . . . This effort of the labor g r o u p to unionize o u r profession bodes no good for t h e engineers of this nation, because of its deteriorating effect on their crea tive initiative.
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