A few years ago, a movement started in my industry (Geographic Information Systems) to institute a certification program. The idea was you would send this outfit proof of your professional qualifications and a couple of hundred bucks and they'd send you a diploma which you could use to negotiate a higher salary for yourself, or otherwise get a leg up on others competing for your job. I just saw it as a means for the parasites who were selling the certificate to get rich selling something that others would have to buy in order to earn a living and that management would seize on it to set up a two-tier salary system that could be used to divide workers and turn them against each other. I didn't like the idea one bit.

I went to war with these guys, writing magazine articles, letters to the editors, organizing workshops and roundtables at professional conferences, and haunting the professional chat rooms challenging these guys and their partisans to debates and debunking their presentations and propaganda. I was like a cross between Tom Brosz and Norma Rae.

Well, to make a long story short, I lost the war. Certification is here to stay in my industry, and every year it's becoming harder to find employers who won't wage discriminate using the certificate. Yeah, you will get hired, and do the same work, you'll just get paid less. What I found astonishing was that many people who went after this certificate felt exactly about it as I did, they knew they were getting ripped off, not only by the certifying agency, but by their bosses as well. But they felt that competition for jobs was so stiff that they were willing to shell out the bucks and put up with the indignity for the sake of the imagined job security.

A lot of people wrote me about this, apologizing for getting certified, but still thanking me for taking such a public position. One of these was a young Canadian, fresh out of college with an excellent academic background and looking for work in the field. (Canada, by the way, is a world leader in Geotechnology) He said something that really struck me concerning this issue. "I really envy you Americans at times like this, we just roll over and take this crap because we're afraid to complain and stand out. You guys raise a stink and fight, and win or lose, you at least make a difference."