<p>Not sure if this is the right forum for this, but was curious if engineers are members of a union.</p>
<p>I live in the “oil patch”, and I’ve been working a lot of cases where various trade workers are under the union, but since oil companies also employ different types of engineers, I was wondering if the engineers also are asked to join a union.</p>
<p>I can’t speak to the oil field in particular, but my girlfriend is an electrical engineer and part of a pretty large union (and because of that will probably be earning more with just her BS and a few years of work than me with my PhD :().</p>
<p>Most oil companies’ engineers are non union.</p>
<p>You thought you would make more money because you have a PhD? HAH!</p>
<p>The union workers I’m dealing with are more the pipefitters, operators, etc, but since engineers are sometimes called upon to perform dangerous work, I thought there might be union options for them as well. Also, some areas of the country seem to have more union enrollment than others, so I was curious what the practice was in other parts of the country with regard to engineers and unions.</p>
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Some engineers who work for government and utility companies (public/private) are union members. </p>
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A few years ago we brought in a couple of geotech engineer PhDs from private. They told me not only they are earning more in salary, the benefits are way better… by about 30%.
ladwo, edison, pg&e, mwd, and other utilities start their engineers at 70k ish today. Crazy huh…?</p>
<p>Most engineers I know are not union members. There are some engineer unions, one up in Seattle for Boeing aerospace engineers comes to mind.</p>