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Geotechnical News December 2010
ASFE NEWS
cycle commute takes him a maddening
30 minutes because of crowded roads
filled with potholes. His salary – $765
a month – salves some of the sting, in
part because it’s
more than three times
what he earned when he started out
in civil engineering three years ago.
Which is what causes a lot of young
Indian civil-engineering grads to exit
civil engineering.
The Times article goes on to note
that, “in 1990, civil engineering pro-
grams had the capacity to enroll 13,500
students, while computer science and
information technology departments
could accept but 12,100…. [By 2007,]
computer science and other informa-
tion technology programs ballooned to
193,500; civil engineering climbed to
only 22,700. Often, those admitted to
civil engineering programs were appli-
cants passed over for highly competi-
tive computer science tracks.”
In essence, India wants to pour
about $1 trillion-plus into infrastruc-
ture upgrades, but it can’t, largely
because it doesn’t have the civil-
engineering talent it needs to design
the improvements, which creates yet
another worry: A government report
cites faulty civil-engineering design as
partly to blame for the collapse of an
elevated span in New Delhi’s metro rail
system; six died in the accident and a
dozen more were injured.
The government plans to build 30
universities to help overcome the civil-
engineering shortage, and may even al-
low foreign universities to set up cam-
puses in India.
But offering more civil-engineering
curricula will not solve the low-pay
problem and, until that is solved, civ-
il-engineering graduates are likely to
choose something other than civil engi-
neering. While anecdotal evidence sug-
gests that civil engineers’ pay catches
up with their software engineering
counterparts’ in five years or so, how
many of today’s young people want to
wait that long? Private-sector compa-
nies aren’t about to pay more, however,
because they cannot derive enough val-
ue from young civil engineers’ limited
competencies. And the government
isn’t going to pay more given highly
complex civil-service salary formulas
that indicate everything is just fine the
way it is.
Does any of this sound familiar? It’s
not encouraging.
Unions Gain Big Advantage with New NLRB Bannering Decision
The National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB) has ruled that a long-standing
union tactic
of displaying large
stationary banners at a “secondary”
or “neutral” employer’s place of
business does not violate federal
labor law. The decision covers three
Arizona cases where Local 1506 of the
United Brotherhood of Carpenters and
Joiners of America used “bannering”
to protest contract work performed for
the employers by nonunion contractors
that allegedly paid employees less
than union scale. The union had no
dispute with the three employers’ labor
practices and evidence revealed the
nonunion contractors were performing
no work at two of the three bannered
locations.
In the case of one neutral employer,
Banner Medical, union agents held up
a 16-by-3-foot banner on a public side-
walk in front of the company’s park-
ing lot and 500 feet from the medical
center’s front entrance. “SHAME ON
BANNER THUNDERBIRD MEDI-
CAL CENTER,” the banner read,
flanked by the words “LABOR DIS-
PUTE.”
The union hit Northwest Hospital
with two 20-by-3-foot banners held up
a few hundred feet from the hospital’s
front entrance and vehicle entrance.
“SHAME ON NORTHWEST MEDI-
CAL CENTER,” the banners read,
flanked by “LABOR DISPUTE” on
both sides.
The third neutral employer – RA
Tempe, a restaurant – had to deal with
a 15-by-3-foot, “DON’T EAT RA SU-
SHI” banner held up 15 feet from the
establishment’s front door. It, too, in-
cluded the words “LABOR DISPUTE”
on the display.
The three employers protested the
union tactics to the National Labor Re-
lations Board (NLRB), claiming they
violated National Labor Relations Act
(NLRA) Section 8(b)(4)(ii)(B). Sec-
tion 8(b)(4)(ii)(B) states it is an unfair
labor practice for a union:
to threaten, coerce, or restrain
any person engaged in commerce
or in an industry affecting com-
merce, where an object thereof
is…forcing or requiring any per-
son to cease doing business
with any other person….
Splitting along party lines in a 3-2
opinion, the NLRB decided that Local
1506 had not violated Section 8(b)(4)
(ii)(B). In essence, the NLRB agreed
with the union that, while picketing
against a neutral party would be unlaw-
ful coercive activity, bannering speech
protected by the First Amendment.
“Banners are not picket signs,” the ma-
jority wrote.
This gives unions a powerful new
tool, allowing them to banner the of-
fices of a project owner whose general
contractor retains a nonunion CoMET
consultant to perform quality assurance
services. What to do? Check with expe-
rienced legal counsel for an answer to
that one. (If you’d like to have a copy
of the NLRB decision, send your re-
quest to
.
)
