Do you think engineers are on the way to becoming “cheaper by the dozen”?

[Kephart P.E.]

Not to mention if you have water leaking in your basement, being sued in court, or contract a nasty disease you are much more willing to pay whatever it takes.

Much of what Engineers do best is preventative, which is more difficult to justify your rates for things that will not happen for months and years.

 

[Dark Knight]

I wonder if it would be possible for engineers to unionize and lobby to make licensing (PE/EIT/etc) required for buisnesses. Also they could lobby further to ensure that engineering work could not be outsourced due to these licensing requirements. I wonder if engineers could join with existing unions like the IBEW, pipe fitters, etc to accomplish this goal.

It is in some places. You would be surprised. I know a place, or territory, that if you do not have a degree in engineering and the EIT test, you cannot fill an engnieer's position and cannot do any design work.

 

[Flyer_PE]

I wonder if it would be possible for engineers to unionize and lobby to make licensing (PE/EIT/etc) required for buisnesses. Also they could lobby further to ensure that engineering work could not be outsourced due to these licensing requirements. I wonder if engineers could join with existing unions like the IBEW, pipe fitters, etc to accomplish this goal.

Beware the unintended consequences. I know a couple of places where engineering is part of the IBEW. They aren't any better off now than they were before. The only difference is that now they are paying union dues.

My own view on unionization is that I neither want nor need the "assistance" of collective bargaining. I cut my own deals.

 

[EM_PS]

No professional occupation has any business 'unionizing' - Cripes, imagine if doctors & lawyers unionized! your knowledge is your commodity and what you serve the public with, not some ability to fly a plane or run a stamping machine. Because this knowledge is not easy to come by, attempting to unionize with others having that knowlege results in an ethical dilemma when the lay public could be considered at the mercy of this organized labor conglomerate of knowledged (difficult-to-come-by) professionals.

 

[Flyer_PE]

^Union or not, you are only worth what the market will bear for your given skill set. All unionizing does is increase the height from which you fall when the job evaporates. Have you considered changing industries? There's a lot of work going on in nuclear power these days.

 

[EM_PS]

From what I have seen the ratio of applicants to job openings does not tell me that people with "this knowlage" you speak of is very hard to come by.

Its called a recession dude, lots of people out of work.

my point was that there are certain things that are of a necessity (providing a needed service) to the public that can only by law be accomplished by a P.E. (exempt industries aside), or a P.S., or a lawyer, or an M.D. ... so now ironman (rrpearso), imagine if these professionals became unionized - I'm looking at it from John Q. Public's eye, not my own - but organized labor for professionals who are the only ones by law able to accomplish certain necessary public services pretty much flys in the face of most ethical canons out there. It serves primarily to protect the most basest member (the bottom of the barrel) of collective bargaining units, while ignoring the exceptional. You want fatty cash, become a roller operator on prevailing wage project, just know that a chimpanzee could do your job for you.

 

[benbo]

Welcome back, ironhead.

 

[Paul S]

Sweet, welcome back ironman!

 

[JavaJim]

Some good points were made by ironman. Still, the medical profession has its problems. I have some MDs in my family and it is not as rosey as it seems. They get treated like the UPS guy and they are given only three minutes per patient in the clinical setting. That's three minutes to examine, diagnose and prescribe. If they don't make their patient quotas each six months, they get a pay cut. If that continues for two consecutive periods, they are fired. Sure, they have relatively high salaries compared to most people and their profession is protected from oversupply by placement of arbitrary limits on the number of seats in U.S. medical schools. Now that conglomerates have bought most hospitals and clinics, medical practice is like assembly line work in most clinics. Notwithstanding this, upwardly mobile engineering managers and corporate executives typically earn higher salaries than most physicians.

The medical profession is under fire from nurses and medical technologists who have earned the right to treat patients and to prescribe certain medications. These professions require only a bachelor degree and the passing of an exam. Nurses and med techs are used in many clinics because management knows that they can get many services for far less pay than a physician would want. There will typically be two nurses and two med techs for each physician. The MD will oversee and sign off the work of nurses and techs just as the PE will oversee and seal the work of nondegree and/or unlicensed technical people.

Any qualified student can get a seat in an ABET accredited engineering school and the only thing that matters is whether he/she can do the work and pay the tuition. By contrast, thousands of qualified medical students are turned away each year simply because the medical board limits the number of medical schools and the number of seats in those schools. When you apply to medical school, you are applying to a centralized service, not just to one school. The whole thing is set up to limit competition and to enhance the demand and salaries of physicians.

There is no doubt that the engineering profession is run more like a trade than a profession. It is relative easy to get into the profession provided that you have the math and analytical skills and a strong interest in technical work. Once you get your degree, you are in demand to a certain extent but you will basically fend for yourself on the job. There are few really good on-the-job training programs for engineers. The medical profession is more like a club where on-the-job training is stressed and the training is very relevant to the practice of the profession.

The $64k question is: What should be done about this? I don't have the answers but for starters, I think engineers need a stronger lobby presence at the state and federal government levels.

 

[MGX]

Cheaper by the dozen? Hiring a dozen engineers would give me a volume discount?

 

[chaosiscash]

The medical profession is under fire from nurses and medical technologists who have earned the right to treat patients and to prescribe certain medications. These professions require only a bachelor degree and the passing of an exam.

I'm not sure about "medical technologists" (did you mean physician's assistants?), but I'm pretty sure for a nurse to prescribe medicine, they have to be a licensed nurse practitioner, which requires an advanced degree (masters), not just a bachelor degree and the passing of an exam. I could be wrong, but that's the way I understand it from my wife, the RN.

 

[Chucktown PE]

ironman,

just wondering but have you considered applying for a position in the lower 48. I would think salaries are much better down here than they are in Alaska, lol.

 

[JavaJim]

The medical profession is under fire from nurses and medical technologists who have earned the right to treat patients and to prescribe certain medications. These professions require only a bachelor degree and the passing of an exam.

I'm not sure about "medical technologists" (did you mean physician's assistants?), but I'm pretty sure for a nurse to prescribe medicine, they have to be a licensed nurse practitioner, which requires an advanced degree (masters), not just a bachelor degree and the passing of an exam. I could be wrong, but that's the way I understand it from my wife, the RN.

Yep. I did mean physician's assistants. But the degree for a physician's assistant is called Medical Technology at some schools. At my clinic, some nurses do almost all the patient care and simply get a sign-off from the doctor. Those are mainly nurse practitioners but some are RNs. Some states have nurse anesthetists and that requires specialty hospital training but not necessarily a master's degree although the master's is common.

 

[Road Guy]

Trick Question:

Nurses are told they are to administer drugs prescribed by doctors, and if a nurse doesnt catch one of the doctors screw ups and gives something to a patient they shouldnt have(that the doctor shouldnt have prescribed) , guess who gets fired; the Doctor or the Nurse?

 

[chaosiscash]

The nurse, of course. They are much cheaper and easier to replace than the doctor.

 

[Fudgey]

ironman,just wondering but have you considered applying for a position in the lower 48. I would think salaries are much better down here than they are in Alaska, lol.

I hear the therapy options for anal sex addiction is better down here as well...

 

[Chucktown PE]

Fudgey,

Why don't you tell us a good story? I'm kind of suprised you don't have that fettish seeing as how you spend so much time dealing with gastrointestinal issues. Of course maybe you do have that fettish and you've been silent on the issue.

 

[JavaJim]

OMG! With that avatar and a name like Fudgey, I find the combination disturbing. Snap out of it and get some help.

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

Might I suggest reading some of his prose floating around the site.

 

[Chucktown PE]

OMG! With that avatar and a name like Fudgey, I find the combination disturbing. Snap out of it and get some help.

You don't know the half of it.