CASE STUDY

Burnell Wainwright is a military engineering in the Australian Army forces who is overseeing construction works in an overseas locality. The funding is coming from the international community to help the country rebuild critical infrastructure after a devastating war. A small local company, QualSpec, was placed under contract to provide construction inspectors to help Burnell stay informed on construction progress. Construction inspections are valuable for any sizable projects, but inspections were vital to these new facilities so that acceptable quality was ensured. In this particular environment, construction without inspection would have created many facilities that were not functional or would last just a few years, when the life span should be near 50 years.

Burnell and QualSpec worked together to select the inspectors and many local engineers were hired. The hourly wages being paid to these inspectors were competitive for the region, but quite low in comparison with similar positions in Australia. In fact, QualSpec was receiving about $60 AUD per billable hour, and Burnell thought the inspectors would be paid about $15 AUD per hour.

QualSpec was actually paying the inspectors between $1AUD and $2AUD per hour and had a line of local engineers at the door desiring this work at that extremely low wage.

After completion of the first week of work, the construction inspectors submitted their hours on a standardized timesheet. Each inspector submitted about 140 hours for the first week.

Burnell couldn't understand why each inspector would report 20 hours per day for all 7 days. It must be some simple error to be wrong by a factor of about 3. So he asked the inspectors to recalculate and report again. They reported 120 hours. Burnell was shocked, so he called a meeting with all the inspectors. He informed them he knew there was no way they each worked 120 hours in the first week. The inspectors huddled together for a bit and then replied, "Okay, we accept we won't be paid for 120 hours. So what's your offer?" They explained to Burnell that they were only being compensated $1 to $2 per hour and could barely survive on that wage. It was apparent they were accustomed to negotiating virtually all business arrangements and they viewed this job no differently, so they were ready to engage in a standard business negotiation.

Case Study From: Starrett, Steven K.; Lara, Amy L.; Bertha, Carlos. Engineering Ethics: Real World Case Studies (p. 121). American Society of Civil Engineers. Kindle Edition.

1. Are the workers entitled to ask for a better wage?

2. What are the strengths of the two business practices described (i.e., reporting work hours regardless of accomplishments and negotiating compensation based on accomplishments even when the workers are being paid by the hour?

3. Are there any sections of the EA code of Ethics that are relevant to this scenario?

4. What is the justification for Burnell to implement the procedures he is familiar with in a foreign land that has very different business practices?

5. Does the fact that Burnell is a military engineer change anything?

6. come up with a methodology for what you think Burnell should do in this scenario?