IEEE Ethics History Repository (IEHR): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 23:43, 2 May 2016

Introduction

This, the IEEE Ethics History Repository, or IEHR, will become the first WEB site of the IEEE History Center devoted exclusively to IEEE's Ethics History. It was proposed by Walter L. Elden, P.E. (Ret), an IEEE and SSIT Life Senior Member (w.elden@ieee.org), and endorsed and approved by Michel Geselowitz, (m.geselowitz@ieee.org) Senior Director of the IEEE History Center. Technical Assistance is being provided by Nathan Brewer (n.w.brewer@ieee.org). It is yet to be decided which OU or OUs will take the lead of this project.

An open invitation is extended to any IEEE Member with first hand factual historical information, papers, documents, artifacts, etc which would be appropriate to add to the IEHR herein. For technical assistance about how to add content to the IEHR site herein, please contact Nathan Brewer, at the History Center, including digitizing from an original or paper content. The goal is to have all material in electronic form accessible from any where by the Internet.

An open invitation is extended to non-retired and younger IEEE Members to step forward, get involved and to take an active part in promoting IEEE's leadership in promoting, educating and providing both ethics advice and ethical support to Members through engagement and serving on the Ethics and Member Conduct Committee, the EMCC.

WLE, April 1, 2016

Pre-IEEE merger background history

The AIEE formed in 1884 to be able to host an International Meeting of Foreign Electrical Engineers meeting at the Franklin Institute. It attracted persons from the Telegraph, Power and Telephone industries. It adopted the first Code of Ethics in 1912, the same year the Institute of Radio Engineers formed.

The IRE formed in 1912, the same year the AIEE adopted its first Code of Ethics. It attracted engineers engaged in electronics and grew faster than the AIEE did, with more younger members. It restricted its mission to Technical and Standards Activities. The IRE did not engage in Professional Activities.

For more in depth history, see The Making of a Profession - A Century of Electrical Engineering in America

Ethics initiatives in AIEE

"Our organization is powerful, is of a very high standing; it is up to us and it is within our power either to increase the standing of the electrical engineering profession, to put a ban on everything we consider improper, to raise the code of ethics of the electrical engineering profession, or to let matters slide and trust to Providence whether our standing shall rise and fall".

Charles Steinmetz

"I believe we should not do that". Charles Steinmetz, American Institute of Electrical Engineers, the AIEE, 1906

Charles Proteous Steinmetz (1865-1923) was Chief Consulting Engineer for the General Electric Company, President of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) from 1901 to 1902 and was one of the engineers who helped transform electrical engineering into a respected profession.

The Professional Standing of Electrical Engineering by A.M McMahon is from a comprehensive paper which traces the origins of IEEE's two founding societies: the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, the AIEE, beginning in 1884, and the Institute of Radio Engineers, the IRE, starting around 1912. The AIEE was a product of Power Engineering and Telegraphy whereas the IRE was a product of Wireless Radio Communications. The paper discusses how in the AIEE after the turn of the 19th century, there was competing forces competing to maintain and change the early direction of the AIEE. Conflicting interests between the founding Professionals and the Business leaders and Managers who wanted higher level membership to enable them to direct the AIEE activities more to support their business interests. With the help of the New York Supreme Court, they succeeded. Then the IRE engineers wanted to fucus just on the technical aspects and not get involved in a Code of Ethics or Professionalism that the AIEE professionals wanted. The reading of the history of the AIEE and IRE in this paper is highly recommended for it laid the foundation for who in the later part of the 20th Century had control of the IEEE in curtailing its ethical support activities.

From IEEE's beginning, there were two basic "professional activities" issues, from the era of 1912, which led to IEEE having severe challenges in the ethical and professionalism areas arising strongly in the early 1970's. Both of these had their genesis in the early transformation which occurred in one of IEEE's predecessor societies, the American Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or the AIEE. This was documented well by Edwin T. Layton, Jr. in his book "The Revolt of the Engineers" (The Johns Hopkins university Press, 1986). A Power Point presentation is available.

Edwin T. Layton, Jr. (1929-2009) was president of the Society for the History of Technology and a professor of the history of science and technology at the University of Minnesota from 1975 until his retirement in 1998. He was awarded the Dexter Prize of the Society for the History of Technology for his book The Revolt of the Engineers.

The Revolt of the Enginers, http://www.amazon.com/The-Revolt-Engineers-Responsibility-Engineering/dp/080183287X The Revolt of the Engineers

The Revolt of the Engineers, http://www.amazon.com/The-Revolt-Engineers-Responsibility-Engineering/dp/080183287X The Revolt of the Engineers

In examining the history of American engineering, this book emphasizes professionalism, social responsibility, and ethics. It explains how some engineers have attempted to express a concern for the social effects of technology and to forge codes of ethics which could articulate the profession's fundamental obligation to the public. The document's major sections address: (1) the engineer and business; (2) the evolution of the profession; (3) the ideology of engineering; (4) the politics of status; (5) the revolt of the civil engineers; (6) measuring the unmeasurable (scientific management and reform); (7) the engineer as reformer (Morris L. Cooke); (8) the engineering method personified (Herbert Hoover and the Federated American Engineering Societies); (9) the return to normalcy (1921-1929); and (10) the depression and the New Deal (the engineers ideology in decline).

I will highlight two of these impacts next.

The first and earliest basic issue was that "businessmen" wanted full membership in the AIEE, so they could direct its interests and activities away from the "professional" interests and activities of the "founding practicing engineers", and toward the business interests of utilities and other industries which they managed. They accomplished this when the New York State Supreme Court ruled in their favor over a suit they brought to broaden membership rules to include them as "engineers" too in the AIEE. This led to the relaxing of the criteria that had been used to ascertain the technical/professional qualifications of the then early "founding practicing" engineers. Subsequent to this, the AIEE/IRE merging into today's IEEE, was limited by its Constitution to engage in Technical Activities alone. It was not until 1972 when the IEEE Members overwhelmingly voted to change IEEE's Constitution, did it begin to engage in "Professional Activities".

For a detailed account of this transformation from the AIEE being led by its founder Professionals to the new Business leaders, read in Layton's book, "The Revolt of the Engineers", pages 79 through 93. This is a MUST READ for IEEE Members, to learn from where the AIEE started, to the takeover by Busniess leaders. It is contended that this control carries on to the present, 2016, and led to the dual restriction prohibiting the Ethics and Member Conduct Committee today from offering ETHICS ADVICE and ETHICAL SUPPORT.

The second issue followed this takeover of the AIEE by "businessmen" again in which this time they used their corporate political power in the AIEE and industry to cause "practicing engineers" who were engaged in industry, to be exempt from being required to obtain and hold a valid legal Professional Engineer's license. This action in essence killed any motivation of the vast number of industry engineers from becoming licensed "professionals", as was envisioned by the earliest practicing founding engineers of the AIEE. By not holding a P.E. license, they were not held accountable to a legal Code of Professional Conduct, ethics, in their industry practices. Industry's argument for this change was that they, the corporation, would be held liable for engineering errors which might occur in their design practice of the corporation's products and services. This P.E. exemption of engineers practicing in industry still exists today.

1912 Code of Ethics

Dr. Schuyler Skaats Wheeler, was President of the A. I. E. E. 1905–1906. At Milwaukee in May 1906 Dr. Wheeler delivered his presidential address on “Engineering Honor” and it was from this address that the ideas were taken for the “Code of Ethics” for Electrical engineers finally adopted by the Board of Directors in 1912]. He always took an active interest in the work of the Committee on Code of Principles of Professional Conduct of which he was chairman at the time of his death. This became in effect, IEEE"s first Code of Ethics and the first of any of the Founding Engineering Societies.

A proposal for the first AIEE Code of Ethics was published in 1907 as a proposed code of ethics.

The authors and co-signers of the proposal were:

CHARLES P. STEINMETZ,
HAROLD W. BUCK,
SCHUYLER SKAATS WHEELER. Chairman.

In it, these PRINCIPLES OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT FOR THE GUIDANCE OF THE ELECTRICAL ENGINEER were proposed:

A. General Principles.
B. Relations of the electrical engineer to his employer, customer, or client.
C. Relations of the electrical engineer to the ownership of the records of his work.
D. Relations of the electrical engineer to the public.
E. Relations of the electrical engineer to the engineering fraternity.
F. Relations of the electrical engineer to the standards of his profession.

But it wasn't until 1912 that it was finally adopted.

Primary documents and papers

Cover of the 1912 AIEE Code of Ethics

Creating the IEEE Code of Ethics - by Emerson Pugh - This writing, by Emerson Pugh, discusses the evolution of the several IEEE Codes of Ethics, since the first was approved in 1912 by the AIEE.
Professionalism and the Corporate Engineer: Charles P. Steinmetz and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers
The Professional Standing of Electrical Engineering by A.M McMahon
Proposed Code of Ethics 1907, AIEE
Discussion on Proposed Code of Ethics by S.S. Wheeler, 1907 AIEE
Discussion on Engineering Honor, by Charles P. Stienmetz, AIEE, 1906
The Engineer's Responsibility to Society, AIEE 1907
Proposed Code of Ethics, AIEE 1907
Engineering Honor-A Presidential Address, by S.s. Wheeler, AIEE 1906
A Historical Walkthrough of IEEE's Involvement of Ethics, 1884 - 2015 - In this slide show presentation, Walter Elden walks through different time periods in IEEE's history, showing when it at times supported ethics and more recently restricted its Ethics and Member Conduct Committee from both offering ethics advice and ethical support to its Members. Elden contends this restriction violates IEEE's own Governance Documents as well as NY Corporate Law for Non-Profits.
Correspondence, Dated January 1912, was found which affected the adoption of the 1912 Code of Ethics.

Ethics under IEEE

The Proposed Constitutional Amendment to Add Professional Activities - This article appeared in Spectrum in 1972 and explained a proposed Constitutional Amendment, if passed, would add Professional Activities to IEEE's long standing Technical, Educational and Standards Activities. In November of 1972, the Amendment passed by over 86 %. That led to the upgrading of the IEEE Code of Ethics in 1974, entering the BART Case and forming the Member Conduct Committee, among other professional and career enhancing programs.
The IEEE and the New Professionalism
USAB-Where Did We Come From, by John Guarerra, John Guarerra, a former USAB Vice President, writes about where the USAB came from, why and what it set out to accomplish.
IEEE USA -Its History from the USAC and USAB, This presents the history of IEEE's USAB, the Professional Arm of Regions 1-6. USAB, and its predecessor the USAC, played a pivotal role during the 1970's in the development of the 1974 Code of Ethics, IEEE's entering an Amicus Curiae in the BART Case, the forming of an Ethics Task Force which drafted the set of Discipline and Ethical Support procedures which led to forming the Member Conduct Committee.

In November of 1972, the IEEE Members voted over 86% support and Professional Activities was added to the IEEE Constitution for th e first time since the AIEE forerunner was first established in 1884. In the Orlando (FL-USA) Section of IEEE, at its next meeting, held in December 1972, when outgoing IEEE President Robert Tanner, from Canada and IEEE's first International Member President, attended, a proposal was made by Member Walter Elden for the forming of a Professional Activities Committee, or PAC, in the Section. The Executive Board gave its approval and the new PAC, believed to have been the first to be established following the Constitutional Amendment change, began operating starting the next month, January 1973. The first PAC Chair then was Walter Elden and monthly meetings began to be held regularly, and well attended. In later years, the term PAC was changed to PACE, meaning Professional Activities Committee for Engineers, to avoid confusion with Political Action Committee, another PAC jargon.

It just so happened that the next SOUTHEASTCON was to be held in Orlando in April-May of 1974, the next year. PAC Chairman Elden proposed and received approval to form and hold a new papers session at this conference, that being for Professional Activities. In so doing, the Orlando Section at that SOUTHEASTCON created the first Professional Activities papers Session in IEEE's history, another milestone. Authors were invited to submit papers for consideration. There were a total of 12 papers chosen to be presented, from authors, David Boseman, Walter Elden, Walter Nunn, Ted Stefanik. and Paul Thompson.

We must begin discussing “ethical support” with a specific Code of Ethics to be supported in mind, so I begin with the 1974 Code adopted by the IEEE. But actually, prior to the 1974 Code, there were actually two previous Codes, that had been adopted by one of IEEE’s predecessor Societies, the AIEE, in 1912, and then in 1950. As an aside, IEEE, in preparing its Amicus Curiae brief in the BART case was not even aware that there existed the 1950 AIEE Code.

Here are the relevant links:

The 1974 Code was a direct result of the IEEE Members voting in November 1972 by over 82% YES to amend its Constitution to add “professional activities” and “the promotion of ethical conduct.“

Before the 1974 Code got approved, however, there was a lot of debate, led by Dr. Stephen H. Unger, a former IEEE Ethics Committee Chair and Member of the IEEE Board of Directors, to provide for supporting those who tried to uphold the Code, but came into conflict with their employer. The IEEE Board just wanted to provide for disciplining unethical conduct, whereas Unger and others on the Committee on the Social Implications of Technology, CSIT, voiced the need to provide for ethical support as well.

Unger in 1973, prior to there being a Member Conduct Committee, presented his proposal for supporting the ethical engineer.

Until 1973, there were just proposals for supporting the ethical engineer, and they only focused on the upholding of the IEEE Code of Ethics in employee-employer professional/ethical disputes, and nothing to do with Collective Bargaining, or Trade Union matters.

In Canor 10 of IEEE's Code of Ethics, the following is stated:

to assist colleagues and co-workers in their professional development and to support them in following this code of ethics.”

The highlighted words are the operative ones. It commits the IEEE, its Members and Officers, to supporting its Members trying to uphold its Code of Ethics. In order to be able to fully carry this out, it must be able to accept and deal with employee-employer disputes, dealing with professional/ethical issues, thus overriding the subject restriction, and providing ethics advice when sought.

The BART Case and IEEE's Amicus Curiae Legal Brief

Around 1972,Steve Unger , PhD, wrote in an IEEE publication, called the Committee on the Social Implications of Technology, or CSIT

In it he, Steve Unger, PhD at Columbia University, had written about the plight of 3 engineers employed by the Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, system in California. They had been fired for raising their concerns over safety defects they observed in the development of the new BART Train System, and then they brought a suit against BART. IEEE Spectrum magazine subsequently published articles shedding light on the specifics of what these 3 engineers had attempted to do to remedy the unsafe designs they had uncovered. Then a milestone in IEEE occurred when the IEEE Board of Directors, in 1974, approved entering the BART Case, with an Amicus Curiae, or Friend of the Court brief. In this, IEEE used the leading engineering Codes of Ethics to argue that "engineers had a responsibility to protect the public safety and to be fired for that action was unlawful". Ultimately, the 3 engineers settled with BART and the case did not go forward, unfortunately. If it had, the IEEE's brief may have produced a landmark decision regarding the responsibility of engineers to protect the public's safety and to discharge one for doing this was unlawful.

Here are the key accounts of the BART Case and the 3 affected Engineers:

Amicus Curiae Briefs of the IEEE:

The IEEE, under By-Law I-113, has had a policy for over 40 years to offer "ethical support" in situations as described above. Further, as part of this policy, the IEEE provides for the providing of an "Amicus Curiae," restricting it to matters of ethical principal, in ethical support requests. Policy 7.13 provides for the preparation of the Amicus Curiae, when approved by the IEEE.

In January 1975, the IEEE entered its first and only Amicus Curiae, in a "wrongful discharge" ethics matter, in the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) case. This involved 3 IEEE engineers, who brought suit against the BART District entity for their "wrongful discharge" for actions they took to "protect the public" in matters of engineering design of the automated train control system. Essentially, the IEEE legal brief made these statements of law to the court, in this case:

"In any charge to the jury herein, this court should instruct the jury that if it finds, based upon the evidence, that an engineer has been discharged solely or in substantial part because of his bona fide efforts to conform to recognized ethics of his profession involving his duty to protect the public safety, then such discharge was in breach of an implied term of his contract of employment."

The IEEE brief said that not only should this apply to Public employment bodies, but to private employers too.

The IEEE Member Conduct Committee

The creation of the Member Conduct Committee was an evolutionary process spanning nearly a decade, beginning in the early 1970's culminating in the Board of Directors approving its establishment in February 1978. A detailed account of the history of this was written by Dr. Stephen H. Unger, (Columbia University Professor of Electrical Engineering and was one of the co-founders of IEEE's Committee on the Social implications of Technology, CSIT). The article appeared in the December 1977 issue of the CSIT Newsletter, titled:

Implementing the IEEE Code of Ethics

A more detailed account is given for the period 1970 - 1975 in the following book:

Divided Loyalties, Whistle-Blowing at BART, pps 321 - 336

There are two well documented accounts of the modern history of IEEE's involvement with ethics, member discipline, ethical support of engineers placed in jeopardy, an ethics hot line, a legal defense fund, and more. These were written by Dr. Stephen H. Unger, starting with IEEE's support of the 3 BART Case engineers, and leading to the formation of the original Member Conduct Committee in 1978.

In the mid-late 1970's, the IEEE USAB had an Ethics Committee under it, focusing on advancing each of the ethics initiatives identified previously. In the late 1970's, it formed its Ethics Task Force, charged with developing proposals for 2 ethics initiatives. One was for disciplining IEEE Members found to have violated its Code of Ethics. The second was for providing support for engineers who were placed in jeopardy for upholding ethical standards. One Saturday morning, in the Spring of 1997, this Ethics Task Force, met in a New York City hotel and developed the framework and procedures for both ethics initiatives. They sketched these on large sheets from a pad on an easel; one for Discipline and one for Support. The Support process flow diagram in the late 1990's-early 2000's was submitted it to the IEEE History Center. Recent efforts to retrieve the Support chart have not been successful.

It is ironic to now look back and realize that it was Steve Unger and Walter Elden, with others, who, in the Spring of 1977, drafted the initial two sets of procedures for creating the Member Conduct Committee. Elden was the one whom the IEEE United States Activities Board President, John Guarrera, asked and did go to the San Diego meeting of the IEEE Board of Directors and presented these proposed procedures to them for adoption. Later, they were merged with another set developed independently by then IEEE member Jim Fairman, an Engineer/Attorney, into what created the Member Conduct Committee. The MCC went into effect in February 1978, some, nearly 40 years ago now. Jim then became its First Chair.

When the first Member Conduct Committee was established in February 1978, it was empowered with two objectives. One dealt with providing Ethical Support and the other was Member Discipline. These were captured in both a Flow Diagram and Narrative fashion. These are shown at this link location:

IEEE Ethical Support and Member Discipline Original Process Flow Charts and Procedures of the Member Conduct Committee

One day in 1978, Walter Elden received a phone call from a Virginia Edgerton. She had an ethics support need and sought his help in the matter. She was engaged working on a computer dispatch 911 system for New York City and encountered some irregularities in response times which she tried to get corrected, to no avail, she told him. Subsequent to this she was terminated. At the time, Elden was in no situation to give her direct help, but what he did was to refer her to the best qualified and motivated person in IEEE whom he knew would assist her, and that person was Dr. Stephen H. Unger, a Computer Scientist at Columbia University. He had personally investigated, wrote articles and led the CSIT effort to get the IEEE to enter into the BART case dealing with ethical responsibility of engineers. While the Member Conduct Committee had by then been established, Elden had no experience with them but knew of Steve's success in the BART Case, knew him and felt he would do the right thing for her

Ultimately, it was not the MCC which investigated Edgerton's claims and request for ethical support, but rather was the Committee on Social Implications of Technology, or the CSIT.

Under Steve Unger's leadership in the investigation. And it was the CSIT/SSIT direct appeal through the Technical Activities Board, then the Executive Committee, which sent it to the Member Conduct Committee which caused them, the MCC, to undertake their first "request for ethical support" case. In the end. the IEEE acted positively on the MCC recommendation to support Virginia Edgerton, and published what her request and issues were all about, not in the flagship IEEE Spectrum, but in the CSIT Newsletter, supporting her allegations. Later, Virginia Edgerton was the 2nd recipient of the 1979 SSIT BARUS Ethics Award. As of this writing, Virginia Edgerton resides in a retirement home in Sweden.

Here are the links about Virginia Edgerton, her Ethical Support Case and the 1979 IEEE SSIT BARUS Award:

That was the good news about the workings of the new Member Conduct Committee. The bad news, however, was that for the next 15 or more years, it essentially did nothing more in the ethical support area, as pointed out in Ungers' writings. Some of my personal experiences while serving on the MCC later sheds light on why this was.

The IEEE SSIT Carl Barus Award for for Outstanding Service in the Public Interest

Beginning in 1978 and going through 2013, there have been 11 Barus Awards handed out. The 3 BART Engineers were the first and Mark Edwards the most recent. These awards are made by the Awards Committee of IEEE's Society on Social Implications of Technology, the SSIT.

From about 1985 through 1990 Carl Barus chaired SSIT’s Awards Committee. He carefully and thoroughly gathered and evaluated information about each proposed candidate. Published articles, internal reports, memos, and letters were supplemented, as appropriate, by oral interviews with knowledgeable people. Thus, when SSIT gave its Award for Outstanding Service in the Public Interest, which, by its very nature goes to people involved in controversies, we were confident that the society would not be embarrassed by the sudden surfacing of information detrimental to the awardee. The high reputation of this award owes a great deal to the work of Carl Barus. In many other ways this very able, wise man quietly contributed to the development of SSIT and its predecessor committee. It is therefore highly appropriate to have the award named in his honor, and dedicated to his memory. –S. H. Unger (3/23/95)

Between 1977 and 2013 there were 11 Barus Awards given out.

IEEE SSIT Barus Awards - The 1st award went to the 3 BART Engineers.
CSIT Honors the 3 BART Engineers - The 2nd award went to Virginia Edgerton.
CSIT Honors Virginia Edgerton

Ethics and Member Conduct Committee

Around the year 1999-2000, the separate Member Conduct Committee and Ethics Committee, were combined into the one Ethics and Member Conduct Committee, or EMCC, of today. This was intended to improve intra-committee communications and reduced expenses. Here is the link to the present day EMCC:

IEEE Ethics and Member Conduct Committee

Today, the Ethics and Member Conduct Committee advises the IEEE Board of Directors on ethics policy and concerns and makes recommendations for educational programs to promote the ethical behavior of members and staff, among other activities.

Vision: A world in which engineers and scientists are respected for their exemplary ethical behavior and the IEEE and its Ethics & Member Conduct Committee are recognized as a major drive in this regard.

Mission: The Ethics and Member Conduct Committee advises the IEEE Board of Directors on ethics policy and concerns as well as fostering awareness on ethical issues and promoting ethical behavior amongst individuals and organizations working within the IEEE fields of interest.

Limits on activities: The Ethics and Member Conduct Committee, which is governed by IEEE Bylaw I-305, shall make recommendations for policies and/or educational programs to promote the ethical behavior of members and staff, and shall consider instituting proceedings, as defined in IEEE Bylaws I-110 and I-111, related to matters of member and officer discipline and requests for support.

Neither the Ethics and Member Conduct Committee nor any of its members shall solicit or otherwise invite complaints, nor shall they provide advice to individuals.

Additionally, the following restriction is contained in 1.4 of the EMCC Operations Manual:

1.4 Limits to Activities IEEE Constitution, Article 1, Section 2

“The IEEE shall not engage in collective bargaining on such matters as salaries, wages, benefits, and working conditions, customarily dealt with by labor unions.”

"The Ethics & Member Conduct Committee shall not be involved in employee-employer disputes".

This statement in bold above is not actually contained in the IEEE Constitution, but instead was a restriction added by the Board of Directors around 2005, but was practiced informally since around 2000, according to a previous Chair of the EMCC in a statement to Walter L. Elden.

Past Members of the Member Conduct and Ethics Committees:

MCC/EMCC Annual reports to the BoD

Members who served on the MCC and EMCC
Employee vrs Employer Compositions
Compared lengths Members have served
Staff Members who served the MCC/EMCC
TBD

Responsibilities of the Ethics and Member Conduct Committee

As in the matter of a complaint of unethical conduct, this too can involve Employee to Employee, Employee to Employer, Employer to Employer and Employer to Employee situations. The more likely situation will be Employee to Employer of the four. Here, the Employee sees an engineering situation needing correction, brings the matter to his next higher authority but gets a NO response to do anything to correct it, then the Employee may go above this Higher Authority or go outside to Blow the Whistle, which leads to some form or reprisal or termination, thus affecting the Employee’s livelihood, and he/she seeks the IEEE EMCC help to resolve it. This then may lead to the IEEE getting involved in an Employee-Employer type dispute, or at best may only be filing an Amicus Curiae legal brief in any court action, expressing the requirement of the Employee to uphold the IEEE Code of Ethics, but not being an Adversary in the proceedings. The BART Case is an important precedent for this kind of ethical support action by the IEEE, as was the Virginia Edgerton and Salvador Castro cases. At any rate, only professional/ethical issues are involved and are fully authorized to be handled by the EMCC, thus overriding the subject restriction.

IEEE Policies Document

The IEEE Policies Document is found here:

http://www.ieee.org/documents/ieee_policies.pdf

The following is from the Policies document.

“Part B - Form and Contents of the Request for Support.

2. The issue, incident(s), or the matter of ethical principle which the person believes is involved together with the specific provisions of the IEEE Code of Ethics deemed relevant or considered to have precipitated the condition(s) of jeopardy;”

Here in the above statement, it is made clear that the request for support deals with “ethical” and not trade union issues. As this is contained in a document higher than the EMCC Operations Manual where the subject restriction is found; thus it can not override the authority given to the EMCC in the above Policy statement.

“4. A full description of the circumstances, events and facts which relate to the ethical matter for which IEEE support is sought.”

This statement makes it abundantly clear that the EMCC is empowered to deal only with ethical issues, not Trade Union matters, so the restriction statement in the EMCC Operations Manual is not applicable here.

“Part D - Responsibilities of the Ethics and Member Conduct Committee b) send to the employer(s) concerned a letter disclaiming any and all purpose or intent to engage in collective bargaining on behalf of the individual with respect to such matters as salaries, wages, benefits, and working conditions, customarily dealt with by labor unions.”

This is an important waiver statement to be sent to the employer, signed by the requesting Member for support. It makes it very clear that the EMCC does not engage in collective bargaining or trade union matters but says nothing restricting it from handling ethical support requests involving professional/ethical issues between an employee-employer. As this same statement is contained in the EMCC Operations Manual, there is no question that the EMCC has any authority to deal in Trade Union matters, only Professional/Ethical. Therefore, the subject restriction statement in the EMCC Operations Manual is not relevant.

IEEE's Ethics HOT Line

An Ethics Hotline

Ethics HOT Line and other Ethics Committee Activities

The Assault on IEEE Ethics Support and the Ethics HOT Line

Ethics Activities Throughout other IEEE OU's

Now that the Technical Activities Board, the TAB, at its November 2015 meeting, took the leadership role to have SSIT look into IEEE’s history of ethics involvement and to identify gaps needing fixed this places TAB in a great position to do something sooner and hopefully easier than the full IEEE Board would do. Here is how.

First, the TAB/SSIT should recognize that already under TAB is a Committee, called the Conflict Resolution Committee, the TAB CRC, and has within its charter already the handling of ethics conflict matters. Now to just modify its current established charter to add a few more services, could through this avenue, achieve what has been denied the Members now for over 15 years, ethical advice and support. Once the TAB would accept increasing the scope of its own CRC, then it, TAB, being a major component of IEEE that includes all programs of its 45 IEEE Societies and Technical Councils as well as programs of the Technical Activities Board (TAB) and the Technical Activities Department (TAD), would be in the position to exert considerable pressure on the full IEEE Board to correct these restrictions placed on its own EMCC. The following provides the content of the emails I wrote, proposing using the TAB CRC instead of the EMCC, to achieve the two stated goals.

It seems that TAB's Conflict Resolution Committee could be expanded, formalized more, and assigned to the SSIT to lead, resulting in TAB, the major OU in IEEE, being in a great position to provide the desired services directly to Members, as long as the EMCC continues to be restricted from doing likewise . Besides, it already exists under TAB and is empowered to offer both ethics advice and assistance (support), whereas the IEEE Boards have for 15 years forbidden the EMCC from doing both.

This paper details the Charter of TAB's Conflict Resolution Committee:

A Strategy and an Alternative to the Ethics and Member Conduct Committee to Offer Advice and Support.docx see pages 3 - 6

Engineering Ethics Books Published

Conference and Published Papers

Historical Newsletters of the CSIT

We now are fortunate to have almost all of the CSIT Newsletters published between 1972 and 1981, archived on an IEEE Server and saved for historical research about this important time when Professional Activities and Ethical Support became formally established in the IEEE. Much credit for the writings about ethics, BART and ethical support goes to Dr. Stephen H. Unger, now retired from Columbia University.

Here is the main link to these archived Newsletters:

SSIT REPOSITORY OF Archived CSIT Newsletters, 1972-1981

Articles of interest are listed for these four categories:

A. ETHICAL SUPPORT ARCHIVED ARTICLES

B. MEMBER CONDUCT COMMITTEE ARCHIVED ARTICLES

C. THE BART CASE ARCHIVED ARTICLES

The BART Case: Ethics and the Employed Engineer

D. THE SSIT BARUS AWARDS ARCHIVED ARTICLES

1974 IEEE SOUTHEASTCON Professional Activities Session

A Historical Note: It is believed that this conference, held in Orlando, Fl during April-May of 1974, set a milestone for IEEE. It was the first to devote a session exclusively to non-technical "professional activities" papers. This became possible when in 1972 the IEEE Membership voted by over 86% to add Professional Activities to its Constitution for the first time, the first Professional Activities Committee was then formed in the IEEE Orlando Section, and its Executive Board approved establishing this Professional Activities session at its Region 3 annual conference.

Why the IEEE Should Support Professional Registration for All Electrical Engineers.pdf, Dr. W. M. Nunn
Systems and Product Safety/Liability - Government, Business and Professional Responsibility, Walter L. Elden
Engineer Employee-Employer Relations, An Industry Professional Practices Evaluation Model, Walter L. Elden
1975 Central Florida IEEE Engineering - Membership Profile Survey, T. M. Stefanik
Professional Ethics - The Employment of Engineers in Industry, and A Model of the Future, Walter L. Elden
In Industry, the Title Engineer Should Be Issued Only to Licensed Engineers, Walter L. Elden
Managing Job Assignments: The Key To Combating Obsolescence, Dr. Paul H. Thompson and Peter Graves
A New PE/EE Exam Model of the Future, Walter L. Elden
Professional Engineers Should Educate Future Professionals About Professionalism, Walter L. Elden
Professional Body of Knowledge Data Base - A Compilation Model, Walter L. Elden
An Introduction to the Early Career Years of an Electrical Engineer in Industry, David W. Bozman

Spectrum and INSTITUTE Articles and Papers

NOTE: The Editors of both IEEE's Spectrum and the INSTITUTE publications were invited to submit a list of ethics articles for inclusion in this repository. While waiting to receive responses, a GOOGLE search of both was conducted and a number of the following were found. Additionally, those received from the INSTITUTE Editor are included below too.

The VW Emission Software Deception Scandal and the Role of or Lack of Ethics:

Ethics Articles Published in IEEE's The Institute

Beginning in 1996, the Ethics Committee worked out an arrangement with the INSTITUTE that it, the EC, would share a column on a Bi-monthly basis with the IEEE Women in Engineering, to publish Ethics articles. Steve Unger asked and I wrote the first article, which I titled,

Curtailing Ethical Harassment

In so doing, later I found that I had established a new definition, which other writers began referring to, "Ethical Harassment".

Over the next years, through 2001, the INSTITUTE continued to publish these articles about Ethics, until it abruptly terminated them. I had requested for the Member Conduct Committee to provide links to the past written ethics articles, but to this day it still does not. So, I undertook and was able to assemble electronic copies of all published ethics articles and saved them on the IEEE Entity WEB Hosting, or EWH, server. The following link provides the complete saved ethics article links, for viewing:

1996:

1997:

1998:

1999:

2000:

2001:

Beginning around 2002, when the Ethics and Member Conduct Committee was informally restricted from offering both "ethics advice" and "ethical support" to Members, the Bi-Monthly publication of ethics articles in IEEE's INSTITUTE, came to a halt, as was all other forms of ethics programs which during the 1990's had been operated successfully.

This was documented in writings by Steve Unger and Walter Elden, as follows:

Supporting the Ethical Engineer - The Road Ahead-by Steve Unger
Let's Put Some Teeth in Ethics Support-by Steve Unger
The Assault on Ethics Support-by Steve Unger
The Case of the Vanishing Ethics Article-by Steve Unger
IEEE Has Shown Disregard for Ethical Support-by Walter Elden

Others

Teaching About Ethical Codes and Practices

Role of ABET TBD
Curriculum TBD
Suggested Texts TBD
IEEE Professors Teaching Ethics TBD
Some Recent Ethics Cases Which Have Come to the IEEE by Stephen H. Unger
Engineering Ethics Courses by Steve Starrett
IEEE Guidelines for Engineers Dissenting on Ethical Grounds
Engineering Ethics and Computer Ethics: Twins Separated at Birth? by Brian M. O'Connell, Central Connecticut State University and Joseph R. Herkert, North Carolina State University

First Hand Histories

My Experience Serving on the Member Conduct Committee - by Walter L. Elden

During the final meeting of the IEEE Board of Directors in 1995, Dr. Steve Unger, then Chair of the IEEE Ethics Committee, succeeded in getting me appointed to a normal 5 year term to serve on the Member Conduct Committee, which he, others and I, worked in 1977 to get established. I replaced a long serving Member, who was then appointed as a non-voting Consulting Member. Upon joining the Committee at its first meeting, it was apparent that some of the other Members did not like my appointment and showed it in ways. Further, ever since the first Ethical Support case of Virginia Edgerton back in 1978, there basically had been nothing heard from the MCC for the next nearly 20 years until I joined them. Steve Unger and I were well aware of this "inactivity" and concerned us.

During my first year, 1996, I was assigned by the MCC Chair to investigate several requests which came into to the Committee, some asking for advice on ethical matters, or others requesting help on matters which were solely outside of ethics, which had to be explained to them. Then I was apponted to serve as the MCC to Ethics Committee Liaison, becoming a non-voting member of the Ethics Committee, chaired by Steve Unger. That committee, Ethics, was comprised of a number of well qualified IEEE Members, representing the USA, Germany and India.They were working to establish an Ethics HOT Line, a Legal Defense Support Fund for Members placed in ethical jeopardy, among other business. On the MCC, I began to become "proactive" in support of the rank and file "practicing engineer Member of IEEE". When cases came into the Committee, I was supportive of those seeking ethical support for the most case, and this advocacy began to rattle most of the long serving MCC Members. I tried to maintain a supportive role with the then MCC Chair, then he explained to me he was resigning to spend more time in his outside religious work at home. His replacement as Chair was a long term MCC Member, a former IEEE Regional Director, and a very conservative protector of the Engineer/IEEE Management perspective.

Early in my First Year, I requested the MCC Staff Member to provide me with any papers, reports or other data from previous MCC Committees. One document was an unapproved Draft of a set of Whistleblower Avoidance Guidelines, prepared by Steve Under, then Chair of the separate Ethics Committee. Apparently, this Draft had been in the hands of prior MCC Committees, which did nothing to advance it. So I gave it life, submitted it to the full MCC and got its approval. It was then forwarded on to the Ethics Committee, which today has a link to it, but when you click on it, you are taken to an unrelated WEB site. This I have found has been a common practice of the new Ethics and Member Conduct Committee even today.

The link to the current published Guidelines is not on an IEEE EMCC WEB site but on a site located at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

IEEE Guidelines on Avoiding Ethical Conflict

The new MCC Chair and I had different perspectives as to the true role of the MCC and how much it was intended to be proactive in supporting the ethical engineer placed in employment jeopardy. This came to a boiling point, when I became active supporting the new Ethics Committees' Ethics HOT Line, in my role as MCC-Ethics Committee Liaison. There I was one of the volunteers who would be given a new ethics request inquiry from a member to look into it and make a determination of its validity in the form or either a complaint alleging misconduct or a request for ethical support.

During the period in which the Ethics Hotline was first proposed, approved, established, operated, and then terminated, I was active in both the IEEE Ethics Committee and the IEEE Member Conduct Committee (MCC) from 1996-1998. I was one of those operating the Hotline, responding to inquiries from IEEE members. What concerned me then and subsequently, was the negative environment that existed on the IEEE Board of Directors and the Member Conduct Committee, to thwart supporting engineers placed in jeopardy for trying to uphold and practice ethically, for operating and use of the Hotline by IEEE members, and the pressure applied to proactive ethics IEEE activities by members. One example of the pressure applied to me is discussed next.

One important inquiry I handled dealt with IEEE Member and a licensed Professional Engineer, Salvador Castro, alleging that a defect in an infant respiratory device, which under certain circumstances, might cause serious injury or death. Having brought this to his employer's and an outside Governmntal Agency's attention, he was terminated, and now was requesting IEEE Ethical Support. We had an IEEE Member medical expert in this field look into the technical claims and he concurred with the IEEE Member's concerns. This matter was then referred to the MCC, to take over it as a formal "request for ethical support" case.

At the San Francisco Meeting where the MCC held a meeting, I, in my MCC-Ethics Committee Liaison Role, presented

The Salvador Castro Infant Respiratory Case

on behalf of the Ethics Committee, discussed its background, what I had learned about it, what the IEEE Member Expert had concluded, and was then asked by the new MCC Chair, to "recuse myself from the case". I was shocked by this, but not surprised by this Chair. I immediately refused. This led to a heated exchange, which led to our going into an "Executive Session" to air this out. Afterwards, I remained active with the others and we worked on this Request for Ethical Support case. The bottom line resulted in our recommending to the IEEE Board of Directors that this case had merit and therefore some form of ethical support should be given. The Board of Directors voted to provide support once the engineer's case had progressed further to a certain legal point. We believed this was the first Ethics Support case the Board had acted on since the 1978 Virginia Edgerton case, nearly 20 years previous and we felt another milestone in IEEE ethical support had been reached. Later, the SSIT awarded Salvador Castro its Carl Barus Award for serving the public interest.

With my knowledge of designing WEB pages, I took the initiative and created the first WEB pages for the MCC and the Ethics Committee. These enabled IEEE Members world wide to now easily access valuable information letting many know for the first time that there even was a 20 year old MCC, where they could find the IEEE Code of Ethics, what IEEE By-Law, Policy and Procedures existed for filing an Ethics Complaint or Requesting Employment Ethical Support, that there was an IEEE Ethics HOT line where they could get advice, etc.

In the Annual Year End MCC Report made to the IEEE Board of Directors by this same MCC Chair, he wrote that I had been the cause of a prior MCC Chair to resign from the Committee because my pro activeness had affected him too much. I was never told of this by the resigned MCC Chair, as his explanation to me for resigning was that he wanted to spend more time in his religious work, outside of the IEEE. This report about me to the IEEE Board of Directors was a Bogus charge, but was never cleared up.

At the start of my third year on the MCC, Martha Sloan, former IEEE President, Martha Sloan, who had become the first female IEEE President, was appointed the new MCC Chair. I felt this was a positive and welcomed change. Also, Wally Read, another former IEEE President, Wally Read, who later Chaired the Ethics Committee, and was active on the IEEE Nominations and Appointments Committee, became a MCC Member that same year on which I continued to serve. When he was IEEE President the previous year, he would also sit in on meetings of the Ethics Committee.

Our new MCC Chair, proposed an initiative, which I fully supported, that would, when approved, provide an Ethics Conflict Resolution Services, or ECRS.

She gave us the framework of what she envisioned. I immediately volunteered to become the Editor, to lead the effort to flush out from her ideas to a full document which could go forward to the IEEE Board of Directors for action. I solicited and received inputs from MCC Members and prepared a document which described what the service could consist of and was ready to go forward for presentation to the full IEEE Board of Directors for its consideration at the end of my 3rd Year on the MCC.

I witnessed, from my Professional "pro activeness" viewpoint, a disturbing statement expressed by the then MCC Member and former IEEE President, Wally Read. In the context of both what a IEEE By-Law created to "provide support to ethical engineers placed in employment jeopardy for upholding the IEEE Code of Ethics", he stated with conviction, that he believed:

"the IEEE should not be involved in engineer employee-employer conflicts".

Now, if the IEEE were to have adopted that position, I did not see how it could carry out the provision in the By-Laws to provide "Ethical Support to Engineers" and the ethics support task assigned to the Member Conduct Committee would have its authority to act removed. During our mutual interactions on the Committee, it was becoming apparent to me that our viewpoints towards the role of the IEEE in supporting ethical engineers placed in employment jeopardy, were opposite each other. He was expressing the "business person's view", while I the "practicing engineer's view".

Looking back to that time, and his Pro-Business viewpoint which he expressed, it has now become clear that his position was carried into the Board of Directors, leading to a number of efforts which systematically began to and did terminate the key ethical support programs and Committee Members, that had been put into place, but more on this later.

In line with my Proactive actions in the Professional area, and having been a co-founder of the Member Conduct Committee proposal in 1977, I recognized that in the next year of 1998, the MCC would be 20 years old, but no public document or news article had been published about it or its operations, since the then one and only Ethical Support Case, the Virginia Edgerton 911 matter. So, I undertook the initiative and wrote an article, which the Ethics Committee had published in the INSTITUTE as one of its Bi-Monthly Ethics articles. It was titled,

IEEE Member Conduct Committee - 20 Years of Operations

Steve Unger wrote about this:

After Virginia Edgerton requested support, SSIT’s predecessor, the IEEE Committee on Social Implications of Technology (CSIT), completed its investigation of that case and presented its report to the IEEE Executive Committee. They turned the case over to the newly formed MCC which reviewed the CSIT’s work and issued a report paralleling the conclusions embodied in the CSIT report.

Arguments from CSIT persuaded the IEEE to authorize publication of the reports - although CSIT’s newsletter is the only IEEE periodical that printed them in full. There was no follow up of the case by the MCC. Since then, the MCC has not publicly reported on any other case. On one other occasion it recommended support for an engineer, but the IEEE Executive Committee rejected the idea. In only a very few other instances (most notably the Heneage case) has the MCC provided support of any kind to an ethical engineer in trouble."

Its interesting to note that up to the 1998 publication of this article, no other case than the 1978 Edgerton one had ever been published, in spite of pleas recommending this be done, by the following:

10 Annual MCC Reports to the Board of Directors
All 4 of the Five-Year Review Committees

In which each stressed the need to publicize the existence and purposes of the MCC to the IEEE Membership and to publicize closed cases, protecting confidentiality.

Later, the worst example of pressure to shut me up was when my final two years on the MCC were abruptly terminated, when in December 1998 I was informed that I was being replaced and would not complete my five-year term. I do not believe up until then that this had ever happened to a prior MCC member. It is ironic to now look back and realize that it was Steve Unger and I, with others, who, in the Spring of 1977, drafted the initial two sets of procedures forcreating the Member Conduct Committee, and that I was the one whom the IEEE United States Activities Board President John Guarrera asked and I did go to the San Diego meeting of the IEEE Board of Directors and presented these proposed procedures to them for adoption. Later, they were merged with another set developed independently by then IEEE member Jim Fairman, an Engineer/Attorney, into what created the Member Conduct Committee in February 1978, nearly 50 years ago now.

During the period in which the Ethics Hotline was first proposed, approved, established, operated, and then terminated, I was active in both the IEEE Ethics Committee and the IEEE Member Conduct Committee (MCC) from 1996-1998 in a Liaison role. I was one of those operating the Hotline, responding to inquiries from IEEE members. I was then serving a five-year appointment on the MCC, starting in 1996, thanks to Steve Unger’s effort to get me appointed by the IEEE Board of Directors. We attended several meetings of the Sections Congress at which we held an Ethics session. I spoke about the Member Conduct Committee and its procedures for both Ethical Discipline and Ethical Support. I was maintaining the Ethics Committee WEB page also during this period.

In 1996, Dr. Steve Unger invited me to be a member of the 1st Ethics Roundtable and that IEEE Spectrum would be there to publish an article on the event, which they published in the December 1996 issues, titled

1996 Doing the Right Thing-Ethics Roundtable

I was excited of the prospect. Having just made contact with Charles A. "Bud" Eldon, a Past IEEE President, we exchanged a few family stories and suddenly realized we must be related, having ancestors from the same birthplace in the Bahamas Islands. As his experience represented the highest Management levels in both his former employer's business (Hewlett Packard) and IEEE President, I felt he would articulate the business side whereas some of the other participants and myself would represent the practicing engineer employee. Steve agreed and he was invited and participated.

Background Of The Restrictions On The EMCC - A Personal Account of Walter Elden

I first became aware of and read about the subject restrictive statement on a Power Point Slide of former 2002-03 EMCC Chair, Charles Turner. I was quite taken back by it, but not surprised by it, considering earlier similar IEEE actions which systematically reduced IEEE commitment to ethical support of its Members, beginning around 1997 while I served on the Member Conduct Committee and was its Liaison to its Ethics Committee, both til the end of 1998.

When I was serving my 3^rd year on the then Member Conduct Committee in 1998, co-Member and former IEEE President Wallace Read verbally expressed that exact statement to the full Committee. At the time, since it was expressed in and to the Member Conduct Committee, it seemed to me to mean he wanted IEEE to “not get involved and provide” any support to members placed in employment jeopardy for upholding the IEEE Code of Ethics in their place of employment. Coincidently, at the same time, IEEE had already begun the process of doing precisely that and continued so, until for all practical purposes, the “ethical support” provision in the IEEE By-Laws became non-existent. Since then, I have wondered if Wally Read was the author of the restriction or was just one of several of other IEEE leaders then, who advocated and then acted upon writing it into the EMCC Operations Manual.

In my personal opinion, I feel these reductions in ethical support and adding this EMCC restriction, was an IEEE Pro-Employer/Business set of actions, to the detriment of the IEEE Member employees, and could well be agued violated Article 10 of the IEEE Code of Ethics, wherein it states:

“10. to assist colleagues and co-workers in their professional development and to support them in following this code of ethics.”(emphasis added).

Further, it could additionally be considered as a possible Conflict of Interest, wherein the business interests of an IEEE Member were placed first to that of the overall professional interests and well being of the IEEE Members. During my 3 year term on the MCC, 1996-98, I had never heard of, been told of or read about this restriction. The earliest dated written record I have been able to find is the slide of Charles Turner, which is dated 12-12-2008. He Chaired the EMCC 2002-2003.

Charles Turner’s slides in question are at this location: http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~aey/eng100/lectures/pdfshort/ethicslecture.pdf

Since finding his slide, I searched and found it in the EMCC Operations Manual, that had been updated February 2009 and approved by the IEEE Board of Directors.

In the EMCC Operations Manual is found the subject restriction, stated as follows:

“1.4 Limits to Activities

IEEE Constitution, Article 1, Section 2

“The IEEE shall not engage in collective bargaining on such matters as salaries, wages, benefits, and working conditions, customarily dealt with by labor unions.” '''

The Ethics & Member Conduct Committee shall not be involved in employee-employer disputes.”

The 2009 IEEE Ethics and Member Conduct Committee Operations Manual, which can be reached at this link:

http://www.ieee.org/documents/emcc_opm_feb09.pdf

It states that:

“The Ethics & Member Conduct Committee shall not be involved in employee-employer disputes”.

This restriction was at the end of Para. 1.4 Limits of Activities, (following the prohibition there against engaging in' “collective bargaining on such matters as salaries, wages, benefits, and working conditions, customarily dealt with by labor unions').

Recently I was informed by Senior IEEE Staff Manager Cindy Poko that the restriction was first approved by the Board of Directors in 2005. But as reported previously, former IEEE President Wallace Read, who was then on the Member Conduct Committee, expressed this viewpoint to the full Committee in 1998. That was the first I had ever heard such a restriction stated by an IEEE official. Further, and this is the most disturbing revelation, she further advised me that this restriction “applies to both Trade Union and Professional Activities Disputes”. This Position Statement disputes the validity of that claim.

To recap, when I served my last year on the Member Conduct Committee in 1998, Wallace Read, a co-Member of the MCC and former IEEE President, said to the Committee:

“I do not believe the IEEE should be involved in employee-employer ethical disputes”.

Finally, it wasn’t until 2005, as I was told, that this view became approved by the IEEE Board as the subject restriction currently placed on the EMCC. However, former EMCC Committee Chair, Charles Turner, informed me in September 2015, that around the 1999-2001 period, when he was a MCC Member, Staff member Lyle Smith would brief the new committee on IEEE policy on ethics, including the restriction concerning employee-employer relations. Apparently, while this was the practice then prior to 2005, it was not an approved policy of the IEEE Board until 2005.

During the 1997-98 period, just prior to this unofficial restriction going into effect upon the EMCC, there had become a pattern of several key ethics support services becoming terminated by the IEEE. Up until then, each had operated effectively and without any problems, such as the Ethics HOT Line, a Legal Support Fund, and the removal of key Pro Ethics Support members from the Member Conduct and the Ethics Committees, such as Steve Unger, Ray Larsen, Walter Elden, and others.

Steve Unger wrote about these events in his papers titled:

The Assault on IEEE Ethics Support (in 1999) at this WEB location:

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4274770

The Case of the Vanishing Ethics Article (in 2008) at this WEB location:

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4538973

I wrote a supporting Letter to the Editor backing up Unger’s remarks in what was titled:

IEEE Has Shown Disregard Towards Proactive Ethics Activities (in 2008) at this WEB location

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4623819

From the time of the creation of the Member Conduct Committee in 1978 until this restriction in the 1999-2005 period, there was never such an official policy of denial of ethical support for IEEE Members. Whether the addition of this restriction upon the EMCC was a continuation and the final straw of the other cut backs in ethical support programs and services, is left to the reader to decide.

The final ethical support measure the IEEE shelved was a proposed Ethics Conflict Resolution Service, discussed next.

Beginning around the time that IEEE started shutting down the existing ethical support services provided by way of the MCC/EMCC to its members, another restriction came into effect which prohibited the EMCC from giving advice to individuals.

This restriction is found on the EMCC WEB site, at:

http://www.ieee.org/about/ethics/ethics_mission.html

as well as in By-Law statement I-305 Para 4. “Limits on activities

The Ethics and Member Conduct Committee, which is governed by IEEE Bylaw I-305, shall make recommendations for policies and/or educational programs to promote the ethical behavior of members and staff, and shall consider instituting proceedings, as defined in IEEE Bylaws I-110 and I-111, related to matters of member and officer discipline and requests for support.

Neither the Ethics and Member Conduct Committee nor any of its members shall solicit or otherwise invite complaints, nor shall they provide advice to individuals.” (Emphasis added)

It was not always the case that advice in ethical matters was not given to IEEE Members from either the existing Ethics and Member Conduct Committee or the prior Ethics Committee. During the 1996-98 period of the EC, when it successfully operated its Ethics HOT Line, the receiving of inquiries, requests for assistance and clarifying the meaning of the Code of Ethics in various specific situations, was the norm. I, along with other volunteers, received and handled these requests. We routinely advised the Member on the specific ethical matter they were concerned with. Some, like the Salvador Castro matter, eventually resulted in a full ethical support by the MCC and the Board of Directors. It was just a fundamental thing to do in those matters; to provide ethical advice.

While I served on the Member Conduct Committee, 1996-1998, I witnessed a top industry executive and former IEEE President state to the MCC that "he believed that the IEEE should not come between an employee engineer and his/her employer on ethical matters". That viewpoint essentially gutted the "ethical support" provision in IEEE By Law 112 and the second mandate to the Member Conduct Committee, to "provide support to engineers placed in employment jeopardy for ethical matters". And what followed over the next few years was the implementation of that viewpoint, causing the IEEE to go backwards and not forward in the areas of ethical support and professionalism, in my opinion. More about this follows below.

The two problems summarized previously, eventually, in my opinion, led to the IEEE withdrawing already established and operational resources in 1998 in support of ethical engineers who found themselves placed in employment jeopardy. The most important of these services which was terminated, was the operation of an Ethics HOT Line, wherein engineers could call in and receive advisory help. In some of these situations, the help led to referral to the IEEE's Member Conduct Committee, MCC, set up in 1978 to both discipline its unethical members, and to provide support to those placed in ethical jeopardy in their employment. Further, many of the key members of the MCC and Ethics Committees, who were Proactive in Ethics and Professionalism, were removed from their positions, and a reversal in promoting ethical support and professionalism began.

As this restriction I have discussed is contained in the EMCC Operations Manual, it is a Level 4 document in IEEE Governance, below in hierarchy of the Policies Manual, at Level 3, which is below the By-Laws, at Level 2, which is below the Constitution, the top most Level 1, which itself is under the Certificate of Incorporation, as far as precedence is concerned. An important paragraph in the Policies Manual, under the heading IEEE GOVERNMENT makes it very clear that a lower level document statement CAN NOT negate or over ride one in a higher document, which is the case here.

During my final year serving on the Member Conduct Committee in 1998, Martha Sloan, a Past IEEE President, was our Chair. And, another Past IEEE President, Wallace Read, was also on the Committee. She envisioned a new service to be provided to Members, which would be for the purpose of trying to resolve a potential ethical conflict situation, involving an employee with another employee, or with an employer, most likely. She called it the Ethics Conflict Resolution Service, or ECRS. She outlined its elements and how it could operate. The Committee received it positively and gave her its support. There were no objections voiced.

I volunteered to become the Editor to prepare the set of procedures for proposing the new ECRS to the Board for consideration and adoption. Over the next several months, I submitted drafts to the Committee, received their comments, incorporated them and advanced the procedure to where it was a final DRAFT, ready to be submitted to the Board for consideration.

Here is what the Ethics Conflict Resolution Service, ECRS, consisted of:

Media:http://ethw.org/images/9/9b/Ethics_Conflict_Resolution_Service_ECRS.docx

Elements of the Ethics Conflict Resolution Service were:

Provide Education to the Members
Interpret applicable IEEE Governing Documents
Hold Face-to-Face Meetings with Those Charging or Asking for Help
Provide a Sounding Board Function, Electronic or Hard Copy Media Assistance
Provide a Third Party Hearing Panel of Experts or Peer Review
Whistleblower Avoidance Advice
Mediation or Arbitration Service
Membership in and Assistance from the Ethics Officers Association

It should be evident from this list of envisioned services that the prohibition to the giving of ethical advice to the Members was not even a consideration. Further, these services would have been in addition to what the IEEE Ethics HOT Line had already been providing, successfully, and without any incidents, until it was terminated by the IEEE Ex Com in that same year, 1998.

At the end of my 3^rd year serving on the MCC, without warning, I was informed that I was being replaced and would not serve the final 2 years of my appointed 5 year term. Further, it was learned later into the next year, after making an inquiry to Martha Sloan, the one who proposed creating the Ethics Conflict Resolution Service, that the DRAFT Proposed ECRS never was submitted to the IEEE Board for consideration by the new 1999 MCC.

It was then after that period, that the subject restriction on the EMCC to “not give ethical advice” to Members went into effect and still exists today, as reported above. That restriction should be challenged by the Members and efforts made to get it rescinded. Further, Martha Sloan’s envisioned Ethics Conflict Resolution Service should be given a second serious consideration. I feel fortunate for having saved my notes from the 1998 ECRS Draft, so I was able to report on its content above herein for posterity.

Oral histories

TBD

Inter Engineering Society Cooperation

TBD
ASME, ASCE, NSPE, ......etc

Diverse Regional Cultural Ethical Practices

TBD

Comments and Opinions

Here authors and/or viewers may offer feedback about the Repository, its contents, IEEE practices, and different points of view

Why And How This IEEE Ethics History Repository Came Into Being

When I became aware that IEEE's Board of Directors had added a one line Restriction into the Ethics and Member Conduct Committee's Operating Manuel, which read, as follows

"The Ethics & Member Conduct Committee shall not be involved in employee-employer disputes"

I decided to look into this, as I knew that it had not been IEEE's policy to restrict that from 1975 til at least 1998.

While conducting research on this and IEEE's general ethics history, I came across a wealth of papers, books, WEB sites, etc, which to me were quite valuable and it did not make sense that others doing similar research would have to repeat that laborious task. Recently, I proposed the establishing of an IEEE Ethics History Repository, which led to the establishing of this IEHR.

I am hopeful my proposal and its implementation into reality, will be appreciated by those who follow me.

Walter L. Elden, P. E. (Ret), April 2, 2016

IEEE and SSIT Life Senior Member

IEEE Region 3, Daytona Beach, Fl Section

w.elden@ieee.org

Where EMCC's Dual Restrictions Violate IEEE Governance Documents

Where the IEEE's Restrictions Against Ethics Advice and Ethical Support Violate IEEE's Governing Documents:

NY Non Profit Corporate Directors duties
IEEE Constitution
IEEE Bylaws
IEEE Policies
EMCC OPERATING MANUAL

This section addresses the Governance documents from the top most New York State law for Non Profit Organizations, down to the EMCC Operations Manual, which is where the subject restriction statement is contained.

The New York State Not-for-Profit Corporate Law

The law in the state of New York which covers Non Profit Organizations, is at the top of the overall Governance chain of documents affecting the running of the IEEE. So, what the law is in our case, and how it applies to the duties of IEEE’s Board of Directors, is most relevant to if the subject restriction is valid or not. I will begin with a slide from the briefing given by the “IEEE in 2030” Committee on October 4, 2015 to the IEEE Board of Directors.

The “IEEE in 2030” effort to restructure the IEEE for the year 2003 contains this slide:

Slide 24, Board Source Governance Review

which is part of the 4 October 2015 Power Point Presentation to the IEEE Board,

titled, at this location:

IEEE in 2030 Optimizing for Impact

In this slide, Point 2 states:

“Under New York State Corporate Law, the board’s loyalty is first and foremost to the good of the corporation, in this case IEEE. Representative Boards, such as IEEE’s where Directors represent Regions and Societies, can create conflicting loyalties.”

In our case, the organization is the collective IEEE Members, Staff and Employees and the law states they are to be where the Directors’ first loyalty is to. That even overrides from which IEEE Group or entity they were elected to the Board from. Further, it would likewise exclude allegiance to any non-IEEE employer or client or other special personal interest. So if the IEEE Organization is where first loyalty is to be given, what would the legal duties of such Directors be in their IEEE capacity?

A Non Profit Organization Directors’ Legal Duties and Obligations to IEEE’s Members, Staff and Employees

Sources about what the law is here, are the following:

What The Law Is Right From the Start

What The Duties of a Non Profit's Directors Are

Quoting from the second source:

“Directors are required to perform their duties in good faith, with ordinary care, and in the best interest of the nonprofit, explained as follows:

In good faith. Good faith is shown by honesty and faithfulness to duties and obligations.
With ordinary care. Ordinary care is the use of good judgment and common sense. It means doing to perform their duties in good faith, with ordinary care, and in the best interest of the what an ordinarily prudent person in a similar position would do under similar circumstances. Ordinary care may differ from director to director based on their background and experience and the role they play in the organization.
In the best interest of the nonprofit. A director acts in the best interest of the nonprofit if the director reasonably believes that the action will benefit the nonprofit.

Doing what is in the best interest of the nonprofit means being loyal to the nonprofit – it means the nonprofit’s interest prevails over the director’s personal or business interest. Doing what is in the best interest of the nonprofit means that directors are obedient to the “laws” of that nonprofit, which include adhering to the Articles of Incorporation (or Certificate of Formation), bylaws, tax-exempt status, and faithfully following its mission and purpose. As always, it means that directors follows all laws applying to the nonprofit – federal, state, and local laws and regulations.” (Emphasis was added in last bullet to highlight the operative part.) How does a Director’s first loyalty apply to the IEEE in the subject restriction?

Given that the law states that the first obligation of the Director is to the Organization, I take the position that the Members, who with the employees and staff, make up the organization, and that ALL Members of the IEEE agree to abide by its Code of Ethics, and in the code, Article 10 makes it quite clear that each Member is to support the other Members in upholding the Code of Ethics. In other words, to “provide ethical support” if and when asked, needed and justifiable. Therefore, for the IEEE Directors to have passed and approved the subject restriction against the EMCC to get involved in employee-employer disputes of a professional/ethical nature, would therefore be a violation of the IEEE Code of Ethics, Article 10, in my humble opinion. Therefore, the Directors of IEEE should rescind this restriction and remove it from the EMCC Operations Manual.

IEEE Certificate of Incorporation

The link for the IEEE Certificate of Incorporation is here: http://www.ieee.org/documents/01-05-1993_Certificate_of_Incorporation.pdf

The CoI was last revised in 1997. In it, there is the language providing for the engaging in Professional Activities and the prohibition against Collective Bargaining in matters such as trade union issues. In my opinion, this does not prohibit the EMCC for entering into employee-employer disputes, dealing with professional/ethical issues and thus the subject restriction is in conflict with the CoI.

IEEE Constitution Document

The link for the IEEE Constitution is here: https://www.ieee.org/documents/ieee_constitution_and_bylaws.pdf

In the Constitution, Article I, Section 2 at the end, contains this statement:

“The IEEE shall not engage in collective bargaining on such matters as salaries, wages, benefits, and working conditions, customarily dealt with by labor union”

My view about this negative clause is that it has little or nothing to do with IEEE’s policies for Member Discipline and Ethical Support, as the early history and precedent cases have shown that the MCC deals with Professional and Ethical matters and not trade union matters. The above clause applies to hourly labor union matters which it makes quite clear, whereas the IEEE’s MCC charter deals with Professional employee Ethical behavior and conflict, entirely unrelated. So the subject restrictive clause has little or no applicability.

IEEE Bylaws Document

The link for the IEEE Bylaws is here: https://www.ieee.org/documents/ieee_constitution_and_bylaws.pdf

It is here where the teeth is found for invalidating the subject restriction contained in the EMCC Operations Manual.

Bylaw 110 Paragraph 3. Member Discipline

This part of the Bylaws provides for two important authorities for the IEEE; the first is to receive complaints alleging a violation of some part of the IEEE Code of Ethics. This could be any combination of Employee to Employee, Employee to Employer, Employer to Employer, Employer to Employee. Unless the matter can be settled by the parties themselves, and one seeks IEEE to become involved, by definition it may lead to an employee-employer dispute, and must have nothing to do with labor union issues. That is just the nature of it. So, under this Bylaw provision, the IEEE would have to be involved to determine any merit of the case or not and to try to find a solution to the matter. This part of the Bylaws, in my opinion, overrides the subject EMCC restriction.

Bylaw 110 Paragraph 10 Member Support

“IEEE may offer support to engineers and scientists involved in matters of ethical principle that stem in whole or in part from adherence to the principles embodied in the IEEE Code of Ethics, and that can jeopardize a person's livelihood, can compromise the discharge of the person’s professional responsibilities, or that can be detrimental to the interests of IEEE or of the engineering profession…”

As in the matter of a complaint of unethical conduct, this too can involve Employee to Employee, Employee to Employer, Employer to Employer and Employer to Employee situations. The more likely situation will be Employee to Employer of the four. Here, the Employee sees an engineering situation needing correction, brings the matter to his next higher authority but gets a NO response to do anything to correct it, then the Employee may go above this Higher Authority or go outside to Blow the Whistle, which leads to some form or reprisal or termination, thus affecting the Employee’s livelihood, and he/she seeks the IEEE EMCC help to resolve it. This then may lead to the IEEE getting involved in an Employee-Employer type dispute, or at best may only be filing an Amicus Curiae legal brief in any court action, expressing the requirement of the Employee to uphold the IEEE Code of Ethics, but not being an Adversary in the proceedings. The BART Case is an important precedent for this kind of ethical support action by the IEEE, as was the Virginia Edgerton and Salvador Castro cases. At any rate, only professional/ethical issues are involved and are fully authorized to be handled by the EMCC, thus overriding the subject restriction.

IEEE Policies Document

The IEEE Policies Document is found here: http://www.ieee.org/documents/ieee_policies.pdf

The following is from the Policies document.

“Part B - Form and Contents of the Request for Support.

2. The issue, incident(s), or the matter of ethical principle which the person believes is involved together with the specific provisions of the IEEE Code of Ethics deemed relevant or considered to have precipitated the condition(s) of jeopardy;”

Here in the above statement, it is made clear that the request for support deals with “ethical” and not trade union issues. As this is contained in a document higher than the EMCC Operations Manual where the subject restriction is found; thus it can not override the authority given to the EMCC in the above Policy statement.

“4. A full description of the circumstances, events and facts which relate to the ethical matter for which IEEE support is sought.”

This statement makes it abundantly clear that the EMCC is empowered to deal only with ethical issues, not Trade Union matters, so the restriction statement in the EMCC Operations Manual is not applicable here.

Why IEEE Terminated All Ethical Advice And Support Of Its Engineers, Technologists And Members

This is my personal opinion about why the IEEE over the years eventually terminated all Ethics Advice and Ethical Support to its Members. I base this upon history, beginning back in the early days of the AIEE, a founding Society along with the IRE, of today's IEEE.

First, in 1912, the NY Supreme Court ruled that Executives would be allowed to serve on the Board of Directors (this was shown above as history). This enabled them to exercise the power they wanted for directing AIEE's interests towards their electrical/telephony business interests, and away from what had been the interests of the founding Practicing Engineer. In particular, these business leaders needed to promote needed industrial standards favorable to their business interests. Subsequently, then they were successful in elimination of engineers employed in industry from being required to hold a Professional Engineer's license, to practice (this was shown above as history). Both of these steps shifted the focus of the AIEE away from what the founding Practicing Engineers had formed the AIEE for in the beginning.

Second, in the early to mid 1970's, when large numbers of Aerospace Engineers had become unemployed when the Space program wound down, they demanded and got the IEEE Constitution amended by more than an 82% YES vote, and Professional Activities was added for the first time to IEEE's historical Technical, Educational and Standards Activities. Subsequently, IEEE adopted its modern day Code of Ethics in 1974, filed its historic Amicus Curiae in the BART Case, and debated how to enforce the new Code of Ethics. (These were shown above as history).

Third, in 1976-77, the Board of Directors business interests Members, wanted any new Ethics Committee to just be empowered to discipline alleged violations of the Code of Ethics but not to provide ethical support when a Member was placed in employment jeopardy for upholding the Code. On the other hand, the new United States Activities Committee, USAC and the Committee on the Social Implications of Technology, favored a new Ethics Committee with both discipline and ethical support powers. Eventually, these were combined and the new Member Conduct Committee, MCC, was approved in February 1978 with both duties. (These were shown above as history).

Fourth, when members were appointed to the Member Conduct Committee during its first 15-20 years of operation, they for the most part acted less than enthusiastically to provide ethical support and never published anything about its operations, cases handled, etc. (This was shown above as history),

Fifth, when the Ethics Committee, under Steve Unger as Chair, became active in the mid to late 1990's, it was successful in getting approval to establish several pro-ethics advice and support initiatives, such as requiring agreeing to comply with the Code of Ethics as one condition of renewing IEEE's Membership, operation of an Ethics HOT Line, publishing of ethics articles on an Bi-Monthly basis in the INSTITUTE, and plans for establishing an Legal Defense Fund. (These were shown above as history).

Sixth, when I was appointed to the Member Conduct Committee in 1996, to serve a 5 year term, I was able to see its operations, or lack of them, from the inside, verifying what Steve Unger and others had observed as inactivity on the part of the Member Conduct Committee to render ethical support to Members. Further, pressure was applied to me from most of the other MCC Members, over my pro-employee support actions. (These were shown above as history).

Seven, while on the MCC in 1998, I observed first hand then MCC Chair Martha Sloan, and a former IEEE President, advocating for the MCC to become more Pro-Ethics Advisor and Supporter, but another MCC Member and former IEEE President also, Wally Read, countered with a Pro-Business stance to not want the IEEE to get involved in employee-employer ethical conflicts (This was shown above to be history). Ultimately, Read's Pro-Business view prevailed. Further, each of the pro-ethics initiatives which the Unger Ethics Committee had gotten enacted, had been terminated by around 1997-98 and ethics advice and ethical support was stopped by the Board of Directors. (This was shown above to be history). At the end of my 3rd year serving on the MCC, my term was unexpectedly terminated 2 years early after I was Editor of Martha Sloan's proposed Ethics Clnflict Resolution Service, which Wally Read voiced opposition to.

Eight, finally, beginning around 2000, Wally Read's position became the informal way the new Ethics and Member Conduct Committee operated, and was prohibited from getting involved in employee-employer professional and ethical conflicts (This was shown above to be history).

Nine, then in 2005, the IEEE Board of Directors formally adopted the position prohibiting the EMCC from getting involved in employee-employer ethical conflicts and would not allow it to offer ethics advice to Members (These were shown above to be history).

Ten, today, 2016, the Ethics and Member Conduct Committee is prohibited from offering ethics advice and ethical support to its Members (This was shown above to be history).

I have concluded that these negative ethics positions were/are the result of Pro-Business Members exerting too much control in this area of IEEE and until new, younger Members step forward and reverse this over control, both ethics advice and ethical support will be denied to them in their practices. Additionally, under the current New York Not for Profit Corporate Law, the Directors of Not for Profits, owe their allegiance first, not to their outside business interests or employers, but instead to the Membership of the Not for Profit they are Directors of. I wonder if the law back in 1912 when the NY Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Business Members then had been under this same interpretation, if it would still have ruled they could serve on the Board of Directors of the AIEE and direct its activities in favor of their outside business interests. Finally, Canon 10 of IEEE's Code of Ethics, places the obligation on IEEE's Directors, to "support the Members adhere to the Code". I can not see how by continuing to restrict the EMCC from rendering ethics advice and ethical support does not violate this part of the IEEE Code of Ethics. So when will any IEEE Board make the needed changes and reverse these restrictions?

This has been my personal opinion but based on factual IEEE history.

An Historical Walk Through of IEEEs Support and Non-Support of Ethics, 1884-2015.pptx

A_POSITION_STATEMENT_DOCUMENTING_ETHICAL_SUPPOPT_RESTRICTION ON THE EMCC (7).docx

A Position Statement on Engineer Employee-Employer Ethical Disputes

Walter L Elden, P.E. (Ret), April 10, 2016

IEEE and SSIT Life Senior Member

w.elden@ieee.org

A Personal Look Back And Forward At IEEE's Ethics History

This IEEE Ethics History Repository, which I proposed and helped get started, houses key documents about how the IEEE first got started in ethics, the creation of the Member Conduct Committee, and now its replacement, the Ethics and Member Conduct Committee

We can speculate on where IEEE might go in the future in the ethics area. I will offer my opinions on this now. I offer three papers on this, discussed as follows.

A Personal Look Back and Forward at IEEE's Ethics History

With the establishment of the new IEEE Ethics History Repository, I am hopeful that many Members will avail themselves of the vast number of papers and writings now in this one central place, become informed of IEEE’s changing roles in ethics advice and support, and work to have both of these services restored to be performed by IEEE’s Ethics and Member Conduct Committee. That is why I proposed and worked to create this Repository on IEEE’s Ethics History.

Walter L. Elden

April 25, 2016

@@ Line 325: / Line 325: @@
 It seems that TAB's Conflict Resolution Committee could be expanded, formalized more, and assigned to the SSIT to lead, resulting in TAB, the major OU in IEEE, being in a great position to provide the desired services directly to Members, as long as the EMCC continues to be restricted from doing likewise . Besides, it already exists under TAB and is empowered to offer both ethics advice and assistance (support), whereas the IEEE Boards have for 15 years forbidden the EMCC from doing both.
-This paper details the Charter of TAB's Conflict Resolution Committee:
+'''This paper details the Charter of TAB's Conflict Resolution Committee:'''
+'''[https://sites.google.com/site/webpagesofwalterelden/home/ieee-ethics-position-papers/A%20Strategy%20and%20an%20Alternative%20to%20the%20Ethics%20and%20Member%20Conduct%20Committee%20to%20Offer%20Advice%20and%20Support.docx#page=3 A Strategy and an Alternative to the Ethics and Member Conduct Committee to Offer Advice and Support.docx]  see pages 3 - 6'''
 == Engineering Ethics Books Published ==