National Society of Professional Engineers

January 15, 2004

Remarks of Paul E. Almeida, President

Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO

Good afternoon.

Thank you for inviting me here to today to speak with you about “Unionism for Professionals.” I would like to touch on three areas today, a brief description of the Department for Professional Employees, the present landscape of the workforce and the attitudes of professionals about unions and unionism.

The Department for Professional Employees is a coalition of 23 national unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO which represent over four million highly skilled, white-collar employees. DPE unions include professionals in over three hundred separate and distinct occupations. The occupations represented by DPE break down into five major areas health care, education, science and engineering, arts and entertainment and public administration. The DPE is the largest association of professional, technical and administrative support workers in the United States.

In addition to what you would consider the normal activities of a labor organization the DPE’s mission directs to:

·        Educate pre-professionals, the public and the media about the prominent role of union professionals within our nation and the labor movement;

·        Build alliances with non-union associations and societies that also promote the interests of these workers.

The present landscape for the engineering workforce as you know is not healthy. This is due to many factors some of which you have touched on such as the abuses of guest workers programs including H1-B and L-1, and the dramatic shift towards outsourcing.

In recent testimony before the House committee on Small Business IEEE representative Ron Hira stated that the unemployment rate for electrical engineers rose to 7.0% in the first quarter of 2003, the previous high quarter for electrical engineers was 4.8% in second quarter of 2002. The unemployment rate for electrical engineers was 1.2% in 2000, and throughout the 1980’s when unemployment rates for all workers got as high as 9.5%, electrical engineering unemployment rates never rose above 2%. BLS also reported in 2003 that electronic engineering unemployment at 7.0% as well and computer software engineers at 7.5% and computer hardware engineers at 6.5% the last two categories are new designations for BLS.  

The August issue of a Federal Reserve Bank publication, “Current Issues in Economics and Finances,” examined the patterns of layoffs and job creation during the last six economic downturns. They compared the recessions mix cycle (temporary) and structural (permanent) to determine the cause for what was being called the jobless recovery. The report found that in the economic downturns of the mid 1970’s and early 1980’s 49% of the job losses were cyclical temporary layoffs while 51% were structural and involved permanent layoffs.

In the early 1990’s the trend had moved to 43% cyclical and 57% structural. More jobs were either completely eliminated or were relocated to other countries. In the current downturn beginning in March of 2001 and ending in November of 2001, reported that 79% of the job losses were structural and only 21% cyclical. In this cycle they sited job losses in electronic equipment, securities and commodities brokerages, and communications were largely eliminated and are not coming back. 

The proliferation of professional and technical workers in the last quarter of the 20^th century, as well as the growth of contingent and other non-traditional work arrangements has caused major shifts within the American labor movement.  As implied commitments by companies to workers evaporate, so do the loyalties of professional employees to the organizations that employ them.

The changing character and conditions of work and the resulting turbulence have brought larger numbers of professional and technical workers into the labor movement over the last five years.  Today the workforce is 60% white collar and the  labor movement is 50% white collar. In fact for the last quarter of 2002, 60% of the organizing wins reported by the AFL-CIO and 68% of the new members were white collar. Yet the labor movement is still perceived as a haven for blue collar and low wage workers. During the past two years, teachers and school administrators, engineers and technicians, nurses and doctors, university researchers, professors and graduate teaching assistants, psychologists, customer service representatives, as well as a host of others, have joined the millions who already find a voice for themselves and their professions within the unions of the DPE. 

So why don’t we hear more about the white collar workforce?

Well in recent months the white collar workforce has been getting some attention with issues like outsourcing and the DoL’s proposed elimination of overtime for many white collar workers.

We do however have a problem with the media and how to convey the issues of the white collar workforce. In the past every newspaper had a labor reporter today you would be hard press to give me the name of five such individuals. Today the story always goes back to the issue, the worker wants more money. While money is important to the white collar workforce, issues of importance go well past money. Today reporters are incapable of translating to their readers in one hundred words or less the issues related to the education and training that a pilot of a Boeing 777 must go through, the responsibility of having 300 people’s lives at your finger tips and at the same time the working conditions that pilots must endure in a deregulated market to maintain the seven or eight figure salary of the CEO. Try to explain in 100 words or less the cost factors involved in a local school district that a charter school will have on that city’s budget. The same is true with nursing and their issues, and goes across the board with all white collar workers. The issue just don’t make sexy stories beyond those who work in those specific fields. I am not criticizing reporters after all they are members of DPE unions as well. They are undergoing there own compression of work by the mega mergers in their industries. 

The news isn’t all bad. I would like to touch on the attitudes of professionals and their view toward unionism. Research done by the DPE has shown that among professional and technical workers there is a high level of job satisfaction. Nearly 83% reported high job satisfaction because of the type of work they performed. Additionally 73% reported that they had been in their current occupation for the past ten years and 74% expected to be in that occupation in the next five years. The commitment to the work they do does not imply approval of employer actions. Top management was given negative rating by 56% in our study. 

We used the term employee organization in our research before we tested the word union. For professional and technical workers, the key attraction of employee organizations is that they give workers a voice. The key reason cited for not joining any employee organization is that they may create conflict at work. Eighty-one percent of the workers surveyed believe that employee organizations should seek to develop a cooperative relationship with the employer. Among different types of employee organizations, the top pick is a union by 36% and the second is a “professional association’ by 30%. Only about 12% opposed any form of organization. Professional are joiners. 

Conflict and a loss of individual freedoms top the list of reasons for not joining any employee organizations.

Conflict equals confrontation to many of these workers. As I have pointed out these workers are committed to their occupation and will be slow to put their career on the line. Management knows this only to well. They know that an aggressive anti-union campaign will cause fear and conflict, which will often lead to a no vote for unionization.

Unions of professional and technical workers need to allay these concerns by vigorously demonstrating a willingness and capability to provide a campaign that lowers the level of conflict created by management and at the same time works to give a voice and vehicle for workers’ concerns.  And thus help them solve problems by bargaining as equals with management. 

In three recent major organizing campaigns of engineers our research was right on target.

All three campaigns were run by the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers an affiliate of our department. These campaigns were the Boeing engineers, the United Airlines engineers and the Society of Energy Professionals in Canada. 

In conclusion, I would like to say that if a contract is good enough for the CEO of a corporation and it is good enough for those who clean their buildings then a contract should be good enough for everyone who works for those corporations.

Thank you.