Carl Darton

You and Science

From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 19, 8 May 1950, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

The scientist, engineer or technician is, in some respects, a professional man. But few scientific workers realize that the technical societies have never been and cannot be developed into well-rounded professional organizations.

The Academy of Linx, established in Rome in 1601, was the prototype of scientific societies, including the early and famous Royal Academy in France and the Royal Society of London. When these societies were formed, there were no professional scientists but only doctors, lawyers, landed gentry and more rarely shopkeepers or mechanics who devoted their spare time to scientific pursuits. These early societies were concerned solely with exchanging information on scientific investigations and winning recognition for science.

Many scientists in industry and government employ would like to see the existing technical societies developed into “truly professional” societies such as the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association. Such a development, they feel, would give them greater, prestige and economic security.

There are, however, two insurmountable barriers to this development. The technical societies are financed and controlled by industry and government and are usually officered by prominent engineers and scientists whose primary allegiance has been changed from science to management. Secondly, there is no myriad of individual and defenseless customers of the scientists‘ and engineers‘ skills as there are available such customers of the doctors‘ and lawyers‘ services. The customers of scientific workers‘ services are corporations and government agencies.

Because of the unprecedented expansion and concentration of science which has taken place in the last decade, the practising scientist now has many new social and economic problems which are still often expressed by the utopian longing for professional status. The employment of hundreds of scientists under one roof has brought the scientific worker face to face with the long-standing problems of mass-production industry; the specialization of skill, subdivision of labor, job monotony, speedup, comparative wages, supervisor-worker conflict and poor working conditions. Even the scientists have begun to realize that these problems are matters for collective bargaining. They want to solve their economic problems but also to retain their “professional pride.”

Getting Advice on Collective Bargaining

The scientific societies, particularly those in branches of engineering, have noted the increased concern of their members with job problems and have attempted to guide this concern in directions most satisfactory to the interests which control the societies.

The broad policy of the technical societies in this matter of collective bargaining can be summed up as follows:

There is recognition that the societies themselves cannot act as collective-bargaining agents, since their membership “embraces both individuals and corporations. The individuals in turn embrace both employers and employees.”
It is also recognized that most scientists and engineers are uninformed on collective bargaining; thus the societies would do well to supply gratis selected information and advice to their members. The Committee on the Economic Status of the Engineer, a joint endeavor of five of the largest societies, has been issuing A Manual on Collective Bargaining for Professional Employees. The advice contained in this manual and other publications is slanted to favor small, independent “professional” unions over those affiliated to large bodies; such as the CIO.
The technical societies have also advocated and pressed for legislation giving special collective-bargaining status to professional workers. The provision of the Taft-Hartley Act, which stipulates that the National Labor Relations “Board shall not decide that any unit is appropriate for such purposes if such unit includes both professional employees and those who are not professional employees unless a majority of such professional employees vote for inclusion in such unit” is the result of pressure applied by industry through the technical societies.

There is no doubt that the tremendous power and prestige of the technical societies are being used to hinder the organization of scientific workers into genuine collective-bargaining units affiliated with the large labor organizations. In some cases, like the American Chemical Society, these societies are actually in position to blacklist any member who actively advocates an “undesirable” type of unionism. Society technical journals are being used to split scientists from other workers and their organizations.

Engineers, scientists and technicians constitute a relatively small but important segment of workers and efforts should be made by labor, particularly the CIO, to counteract the miseducation being given by technical societiees. If the CIO and AFL are to organize any appreciable number of scientists, they must simultaneously convince them that their basic economic needs are the same as other workers‘ and assure them that consideration will be given to the secondary special needs which do exist.

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