File:A POSITION STATEMENT DOCUMENTING ETHICAL SUPPOPT MEANING.doc

Subject: Re-establishing IEEE Members' Right to Ethical Support-A POSITION STATEMENT Document

First, I am an IEEE Life Senior Member of the Society on Social Implications of Technology, the SSIT, and served on its Ethics Committee under Steve Unger in the past, in addition to the original IEEE Member Conduct Committee (1996-98). Ethics articles of mine have been published in the INSTITUTE and the SSIT Technology and Society publications.

I am writing to bring to your attention that since around 1999, unofficially, and 2005, officially, there has been a restriction placed on the Ethics and Member Conduct Committee, the EMCC, to NOT GET INVOLVED IN EMPLOYEE-EMPLOYER DISPUTES. This restriction is contained in the EMCC Operations Manual.

I believe this restriction to be in violation of IEEE's Governance Document Hierarchy, (such as the IEEE Bylaws and Policies statements), the intended practice of the Member Conduct Committee from 1978-1998, ethical support case precedents including the BART, Virginia Edgerton and Salvador Castro (each recipients of the SSIT Barus Award), the legislative intent of the original authors of the MCC Discipline and Ethical Support procedures (which both Steve Unger and I led the writing of in 1977), and Article 10 of the IEEE Code of Ethics. In effect, this restriction has denied IEEE Members their RIGHT to receive ethical support from the IEEE since at least 1999.

As a result of my learning of this recently, I have written a POSITION STATEMENT document (attached) which shows how this restriction violates the above cited sources. I have requested the current Chair of the EMCC and a Senior Staff Manager of Corporate Governance, if they agree with my findings and opinions, to take the lead to get this restriction reversed. The President of the Society on Social Implications of Technology has written of his interest into looking into this with the EMCC. I ask for you to assist in communicating this POSITION STATEMENT to appropriate IEEE entities, so that collectively effort may be applied to result in the subject restriction on the EMCC to be rescinded.

Walter L. Elden, P.E. (Ret), IEEE and SSIT Life Senior Member w.elden@ieee.org