IEEE Struggles to Engineer a Consensus

This is the second in a series of occasional articles on scientists' professional societies. The first, on the American Association for the Advancement of Science, appeared in the February 9 issue. NEW YORK—The planners of Session 17 had envisioned the usual dull lecture—dimmed lights, a slide projector, burnt coffee wafting from silver urns at the back of the room. What they got were undercover police in the audience, and lawyers arguing in court. The events surrounding Electro '87, the annual conference and trade show sponsored here in April by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, demonstrate how contentious life can be at the world's largest technical society. Although the attempt to stop a symposium on "Offshore Opportunities to Expand Markets" stemmed from a long-running and bitter controversy between the institute and one of its members, its occurrence signals the strong feelings such issues can evoke. And the results of last fall's election for president—in which that member, Irwin Feerst, came within an eyelash of winning—point to the lack of a consensus within the institute's 282,000 members worldwide on the future of the organization. Despite Feerst's unrelenting criticism, IEEE is in many ways a leader among scientific societies. Its technical activities, including publications and conferences, are among the most extensive in a field that has gained unparalleled importance in today's high-tech world. Headquartered in New York, it also maintains a Washington office to carry out lobbying and a host of other activities relating to the federal government. At the same time, however, IEEE has always lacked a clear political mandate. Its internal politics are more like that of a conglomeration of smaller societies; in fact, most of its members also belong to one of 36 societies and councils that cover the landscape of specialties within the field. One consequence of its diversity is a tendency to move slowly, and often reluctantly, on major issues. That has left it vulnerable to Feerst, whose message from his Long Island, N.Y., home is nothing if not direct: IEEE should put the concerns of rank-and-file members ahead of the interests of the corporations that employ them. Feerst's goadings have had an effect beyond the ballot box. "He has forced IEEE officials to focus on issues that they may not have focused on otherwise," said Jerome J. Suran, a former IEEE president and professor at the University of California at Davis. "IEEE has a lot to learn on the professional side of its activities." Although IEEE has no corporate affiliations, its leaders are usually prominent engineers who hold high positions in industry and, less frequently, in academia. President Henry Bacbman is a vice president for engineering at Hazeltine Corp., for example, and last year's president, Bruno Weinschel, owns his own company. Factional Battles Charting's IEEE future is a challenge for any manager. Although Executive Director Eric Herz has responsibility for running the day-to-day affairs of the institute, the overall direction of the organization is set by the volunteer leadership. And those goals are reached only after an extended process of negotiation and compromise. For instance, some members are strongly opposed to permitting large numbers of foreign engineering students to hold low-wage jobs in the United States. But IEEE's membership includes non-citizens who work and study in the United States. (In addition, nearly 20 percent of IEEE's members live outside the United States.) "IEEE would be much easier for me [to manage] if it was a U.S. organization," said Bachman. "But it's not—and that's beneficial, too." Even the technical concerns of its members are thin threads for tying together the organization. Individuals tend to identify most closely with their particular technical societies and regions, ranging from power engineers in Tennessee to SDI scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory and computer scientists from Silicon Valley. Diverging technical interests almost put an end to IEEE's largest technical group, the Computer Society. In the early 1980s its annual growth of 15 percent or more far outpaced the steady 4 percent for the entire institute. But the rapid growth presented a cultural dilemma: many computer scientists graduating from mathematics departments did not qualify for membership in IEEE because they were not engineers. Eventually the Computer Society accepted the computer scientists by establishing a separate membership category. But talk of forming an independent organization died down only when an industry-wide slump slashed the society's growth rate to a figure comparable to the IEEE's. By and large, IEEE has stuck to its primary mission: to provide a forum for its members to communicate technical information. About four-fifths of its more than $60 million budget goes for conferences, the publication of technical journals, magazines and newsletters, and the continuing education of its members. It publishes IEEE Spectrum, a well-regarded monthly magazine, and The Institute, a monthly newspaper that covers IEEE events. It publishes a series of technical papers, known collectively as Transactions, as well as proceedings of various conferences and journals from individual societies. And it is developing an ambitious electronic publishing system for distributing technical material. Prestigious Address Although IEEE is 103 years old, it rose to prominence as a technical society, along with the field of electrical engineering, after World War II. Its members have participated in most of the major technological advances of the day. "IEEE is still the most prestigious place in the world for an electrical engineer to publish," says Leo Young, a Department of Defense official and a former IEEE president. Its greater technical prominence, however, has placed IEEE in the middle of many issues that affect society at large. Unlike its technical activities, its positions on these so-called professional roles have always engendered debate. Ever since its code of ethics was drafted in 1912, for instance, debate has raged over its role in supporting members who jeopardize their jobs by exposing the shoddy practices of their employers that may harm the public. An original draft of the code encouraged these whistleblowers to "insist upon the removal of the causes of danger." But influential engineers such as Charles P. Steinmetz of General Electric were offended by its combative tone. The final language was softened to a suggestion that members call the defect to their employers' attention. The massive layoffs of engineers in the early 1970s forced IEEE to pay greater attention to the professional concerns of its members. In 1974 it formed the United States Activities Board to lobby in Washington. From the start, USAB has been criticized by members who feel that IEEE, as a technical organization, should not concern itself with politics. Young, who waged the only successful write-in campaign for president in 1980 by endorsing greater involvement in professional affairs, recalled that many members threatened to resign if USAB were established. Careful not to arouse suspicion that it is acting as a union, USAB has worked on a variety of issues affecting its members. It has lobbied for portable retirement plans and Individual Retirement Ac-counts. It has given expert testimony on such topics as improving international competitiveness. Befitting an international organization, it protested moves by the Air Force last year to restrict foreign access to commercial data bases. But USAB can also put IEEE in conflict with itself. For instance, the board recently recommended that the Labor Department conduct more thorough reviews before issuing temporary or work visas to non-citizens. That action arose indirectly from a debate kindled several years ago when advertisements in some IEEE publications offered salaries far below market rate. Many members, including Feerst, feared that these jobs might be offered to non-citizens willing to accept substandard pay. Smoke or Fire? Unresolved professional issues still haunt IEEE. For example, Richard Parks, a safety engineer, lost his job for his repeated objections to poor practices in the cleanup of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. The situation triggered a debate about the lengths to which IEEE should go to support whistleblowers, culminating in a decision last year to award Parks a plaque and a citation. "Some people would prefer that we hire an attorney for the whistleblower," said Bachman. "But that often involves a complaint against a company. And besides, for all we know the individual may be blowing through his hat." Other issues range from current social problems facing engineers to legal concerns. Middle-aged engineers who find that their technical knowledge is obsolete and their salary requirements too high for the market come to IEEE for help in building a case of age discrimination against their employers. An IEEE committee, Young said, typically writes a letter to the company requesting additional information. On the other hand, such pocketbook issues as annual dues usually generate heated debate. Present dues, which have not been raised since 1984, are $67 for U.S. members ($52 base and $15 for the American section) and slightly less for members in other countries. In many ways, IEEE reflects the problems of today's engineers: torn between loyalties to company, career and professional ethics, they identify with other professionals even though most are employees of large corporations. Given such tensions, IEEE officials find it hard to build a consensus. "The president," noted Bachman, "doesn't have much power." Guterl writes for Business Month in New York and is a former staff member of IEEE Spectrum. Making Reform of IEEE into a Career NEW YORK—Irwin Feerst, 59, is an independent consultant and former assistant professor of electronics and physics at Adelphi University. Since 1973, however, he has carved out a second career as a self-proclaimed IEEE gadfly, armed with the conviction that IEEE puts the interests of corporations before the interests of individual members. "I got ticked off by the fact that the papers in the IEEE journals I was getting weren't very useful to working engineers," he recalls about an. organization that he joined in 1948. Rank-and-file engineers, he noted, were almost completely absent from leadership positions. The result was the Committee of Concerned EEs, which Feerst says has 3,500 members. (The committee charges no dues, but members receive a newsletter on its activities and are encouraged to make voluntary donations.) The organization is a consuming topic of conversation at IEEE headquarters for its unceasing battles with officers and staff. His debate with IEEE officials has occasionally turned nasty. In a letter last winter to IEEE's Board of Directors, Feerst warned that "those people who do attend Electro '87 may be placing themselves in physical danger." Feerst also took the IEEE to court in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Session 17 from taking place, arguing that it was contrary to the interests of IEEE's U.S. members and thus impermissible under the institute's constitution. The New York State Supreme Court rejected the suit; in response to IEEE counterclaims he would his plan to interfere with the session, Feerst also promised the court to behave peaceably. In fact, the only disturbance in connection with the conference occurred two months earlier, when the words "No Session 17" were spray-painted in white on the gray tiles of the men's room on the 10th floor of IEEE headquarters here. Last fall Feerst gave IEEE perhaps its biggest scare yet: he finished second in a three-way photo finish for president-elect in 1988. Although he lost to veteran IEEE office-holder Russell Drew, president of Viking Instruments in Sterling, Va., by 242 votes out of some 52,000 cast, Feerst garnered more U.S. votes than any other candidate. Anticipating another write-in campaign by Feerst, the board this year nominated only one candidate, Emerson Pugh of IBM. Not surprisingly, Feerst has since collected 1,100 signatures on a petition to require the board to nominate at least two candidates. The issue will be placed before IEEE members this fall during the next election balloting. Whatever the outcome, the vote will be only one more battle in Irwin Feerst's war to reform IEEE. —Fred Guterl

IEEE Struggles to Engineer a Consensus

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