THE RIGHTS AND

RESPONSIBILITIES OF
ENGINEERS
 PROFESSIONAL
RESPONSIBILITIES
In practice engineers’ Responsibilities include much more than
preventing and responding to accidents. In fact, during professional
career of an engineer there are many responsibilities and rights.
Responsibilities include both:

> Internal – responsibilities to employers and

> External – responsibilities to the outside world
 INTERNAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF ENGINEERS
(RESPONSIBILITIES TO EMPLOYERS)
• In today’s competitive world, the success of any organization relies
on its team-play. Working effectively as an engineer for a project
requires the ethics of team-play. Team-play involves virtues of:

• Collegiality
• Loyalty
• Respect for authority
• Collective Bargaining
 COLLEGIALITY

• Craig lhara defines collegiality as “a kind of connectedness grounded

in respect for professional expertise and in a commitment to the goals
and values of the profession”. It is the tendency to support and
cooperate with the colleagues.
 LOYALTY

• • It is the quality of being true and faithful in one’s support.

• It is more a function of attitudes, emotions and a sense of
identity.
• It is more a function of attitudes, emotions and a sense of
identity.
• Two senses of Loyalty:
1. Agency loyalty and
2. Identification loyalty (Attitude loyalty)
 RESPECT FOR AUTHORITY

• Authority can be defined as the legal right to command action by

others and to enforce compliance. The authority fixes the
personal responsibility and accountability uniquely on each
person. This is necessary to ensure progress in action.
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

• International Labor Organization has defined collective

bargaining as “negotiation about working conditions and terms
of employment between an employer and one or more
representative employee’s with a view to reaching agreement”
 EXTERNAL RESPONSIBILITIES
(RESPONSIBILITIES TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD)

• The responsibilities to the outside world include:

1.Confidentiality
2.Conflict of Interest
3.Occupational crimes.
 CONFIDENTIALITY

• It is widely accepted that the engineers have an obligation to

keep certain information of the employer/client secret or
confidential.
In the same way, engineers have an obligation to keep
proprietary information of their employer/client confidential.
Terms related to confidential information.
1.Privileged information – information available to an employee
who is working on a special assignment.
2.Proprietary information – PROPERTY or OWNERSHIP a
new knowledge established within the organization that can be
legally protected from use by others
3.Trade secrets – these are given limited legal protection against
employee or contractor abuse.
4.Patents – legally protect specific products from being
manufactured and sold by competitors.
• Types of information should be kept confidential are:
Information about the unreleased products.
Test results and data about the products
Design or formulas for products.
Data about technical processes.
Organization of plant facilities.
Business information
 CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

• an individual has two or more desires that all interests cannot be

satisfied given the circumstances. Professional conflicts of
Interest are situations where professionals have an interest, if
pursued, could keep them from meeting one of their obligations
to their employers.
• Types of Conflicts of Interest
1.Actual Conflicts of Interest – loss of objectivity in decision-
making and inability to faithfully discharge professional duties to
employer.
2.Potential conflicts of interest – may corrupt professional
judgment in the future, if not in the present.
3. Apparent conflicts of interest – there are situations in which
there is the appearance of a conflict of interest.
PROFESSIONAL RIGHTS
 PROFESSIONAL RIGHTS

• The rights that engineers have as professionals are called

Professional Rights. These professional rights include −

> The basic right of professional conscience.

> The right of conscientious refusal.
> The right of professional recognition.
 RIGHT OF PROFESSIONAL CONSCIENCE

• The right of professional conscience is the moral right to

exercise professional judgement in pursuing professional
responsibilities.
• It requires autonomous moral judgement in trying to uncover the
most morally reasonable courses of action, and the correct
courses of action are not always obvious.
 RIGHT OF CONSCIENTIOUS REFUSAL

• The right of conscientious refusal is the right to refuse to engage

in unethical behavior. This can be done solely because it feels
unethical to the doer. This action might bring conflicts within the
authority-based relationships.
 EMPLOYEE RIGHTS

• An employee right can be any right, moral or legal, that involves

the status of being an employee. They involve some professional
rights also, such as the right to be paid according to the salary
mentioned in one’s contract. Privacy and equal opportunity can
be considered essential rights too.
Privacy

The right to privacy refers to the right of having a private life, off
the job. It is the right to control the access to and the use of
information about oneself.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY – NON-DISCRIMINATION

• The demeaning of a person based on trivial factors such as one’s

sex, race, skin color, age or political or religious outlook can be
understood as Discrimination. Such a discrimination should
never be allowed at any workplace; this is where everyone has to
be treated equally. These things internally affect the person’s
self-identity and self-respect which is pernicious within the work
environment, where the work itself should represent a person’s
self-image.
 EQUAL OPPORTUNITY – SEXUAL HARASSMENT
• In today’s world, there is an increase in the number of sexual
harassment cases across the world. This is quiet an unfortunate
scenario. There were a number of cases where the charges were levied
since last two decades, which kept on growing.
• Sexual harassment is, “The unwanted imposition of sexual
requirements in the context of a relationship of unequal power”. Sexual
harassment is a display of power and aggression through sexual means.
It takes two forms, quid pro quo and hostile work environment.
• Quid Pro Quo includes cases where supervisors require sexual
favors as a condition for some employment benefit (a job,
promotion or raise). It can take the form of a sexual threat (of
harm) or sexual offer (of a benefit in return for a benefit).
• Hostile work Environment by contrast, is any sexually oriented
aspect of the workplace that threatens employee's rights to equal
opportunity. It includes unwanted sexual proposals, lewd
remarks, sexual leering, posting nude photos and inappropriate
physical contact.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY – AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

• Affirmative action refers to the preference given to a person or a

group who was denied equal importance in the past. For
example, the women and the minority communities were not
given equal treatment and were ill-treated in the past. So to
compensate that, amendments were made in recent laws to
provide them special quota for reservations in education,
employment and social sectors.
 INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

• Intellectual property right is a type of property right which

allows the creators or owners of patents trademarks or
copyrighted works to benefit from their own work or investment.
These rights enable the right person to benefit from the
protection of moral and material interests resulting from the
authorship of scientific, literary or artistic productions. These
rights are outlines in the article 27 of the Universal declaration
of Human rights.
• Protection of IPR

Like the other rights, the intellectual rights also should be

protected and supported. The IPR (Intellectual property Rights)
need to be protected in order to serve the following reasons
• > The creations and inventions are the paths which lead to the progress of
human development, either in technology or culture.

> These inventions should be protected legally in order to develop the

commitment and interest for more creations.

> These intellectual properties must be protected and promoted which

indirectly promote the economic growth that creates new jobs and
industries, and enhances the quality and enjoyment of life.
• Patents

A Patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention. It

provides the patent owners with protection generally for a period
of 20years. With the patent rights one can access any material
reward for their marketable innovations.
• Trademarks

We often come across certain distinctive marks or signs that

identifies certain goods or services produced or provided by an
individual or a company. These trademarks ensure the belongingness
of products to the authorized owners. The owners can authorize
other persons in return for some payment. The protection offered
through the trademarks is limited for a period, but can be renewed
indefinitely upon payment of the corresponding fee.
• Industrial Designs

The ownership of an industrial design protects it from any duplication. Industrial designs are
what make an article attractive and appealing and add commercial value to the product. This
further increases marketability. Duplication will definitely mislead consumers and might also lead
to the defamation of the original product.
• Geographical Locations

The geographical location indications are helpful for the customers to identify the original and
quality products, which are produced using the raw materials of that geographical area. This
indication guarantees the customers that a product was produced in certain place and has certain
characteristics that are due to the place of production. It may be used by all the producers who
make products that share certain qualities in the place designated by a geographical location.
• WIPO

The intellectual property rights are protected by an International

organization called as the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO) which was established in 1970. This
organization was established to ensure the protection of rights of
creators and owners of Intellectual property across the world.
The inventors and authors are therefore recognized and rewarded
for their ingenuity.
WHISTLEBLOWING
• Whistleblowing occurs when an employee or former employee
conveys information about a significant moral problem to
someone in a position to take action on the problem and does so
outside approved organizational channels (or against strong
pressure).
• When the information is passed outside the organization, it is
External Whistleblowing. When the information is conveyed to
someone within the organization, it is Internal Whistleblowing.
While conveying the information, if the individuals openly
reveal their identity, it is Open Whistleblowing; and if one
conceals their identity, it is Anonymous Whistleblowing.
Concerns of Whistleblowing
It is generally believed to be permissible and obligatory to whistle
blow if the following conditions are met :
• The actual or potential harm reported is serious.
• The harm has been adequately documented.
• There is reasonable hope that whistleblowing can help prevent
or remedy the harm.
 PROTECTING WHISTLE BLOWERS
• Whistle blowing entails a substantial risk of retaliation which is
difficult and expensive to challenge. So, the Government introduced
protections to the employees of an organization to protect the
whistleblowers against reprisals for lawful disclosures of
information believed to show a violation of any law, rule or
regulation, mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of
authority or a substantial and specific danger to public health and
safety.
WHY WHISTLEBLOWING IS IMPORTANT FOR
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COMPANIES?
 THE BENEFITS OF WHISTLEBLOWING

What are those benefits? Let’s consider some of them.

1. It’s ethical. Fundamentally, businesses have an ethical obligation
to protect and support the employees working for them

2. It protects your company. Most employees want to speak up about

potential trouble they see at their employer, and executives should
embrace that impulse.
 CREATING A WHISTLEBLOWER POLICY
• While the importance of whistleblowing is evident, adopting a
whistleblower policy is not something a business should rush
into recklessly; a poor policy can cause just as much headache
for a business as no policy at all. For example, your policy
should address points including:
1. The types of issues that should be reported.
2. Employees’ duty to report misconduct.
3. The option to report anonymously.
4. Protection from retaliation.
Why Employees Hesitate to Blow the Whistle

● Employees hesitate to blow the whistle foremost because they

fear retaliation if they speak up; or (in second place) because they
believe the company won’t bother to take corrective action when
they do try to speak up.
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING ☺