My stance on the DIR Mandate for 2 Man Crew

[Robert Martin]

.
First of all I would like to thank all of the surveyors who spend countless hours volunteering for CLSA, such as those on the CLSA Executive Committee and Legislative Committee, and others.

I am posting regarding the proposed 2 man crew mandate from the DIR.

I want CLSA to NOT support a DIR Mandate for 2 man crew.

I believe the decision on how many crew members should be sent out on a job should be left up to the Licensed Professional who is in “responsible charge” of the field work. Safety is something that cannot be mandated. A mandate will only make things more difficult for the honest surveyors, while the dishonest and “un-safe” surveyors will simply break the law.

If the DIR Mandate does move forward, at a minimum, the following must be exempt:

1. Licensed Individuals
2. Business Owners

Thank you very much,

Robert Martin PLS
CLSA Member

[Robert Martin]

I should clarify the reason for posting. After the webinar and the discussion that followed, I want to make certain CLSA knows my stance. I heard a rumor that CLSA would have a poll, or some sort of vote, but I have not seen anything yet.

I sent an email to the CLSA Executive Director expressing my views, and asked him to forward to the CLSA Executive Committee and Legislative Committee. I would encourage those with strong opinions to do the same, if that is appropriate…

Is there anything else I should do as a CLSA member to make my voice heard?

[pls7809]

Posting as a Leg Comm member...from the information gathered at the last Leg Comm meeting on June 11 this issue is in a holding pattern right now, as the DIR committee which met in late April is not scheduled to meet again until November (maybe, that's the month I remember being said, but I could be wrong). Plus there were edits to the initial language, which should come out in minutes from the April meeting, which have not come out yet.

If my recollection is off, I apologize, but that was what I remember from the updates given at the last Leg Comm meeting. I welcome confirmation of what I have stated and/or corrections to what I have stated if I am out to lunch here.

[E_Page]

[EDIT: Ryan's post came in as I was typing. I missed the June Leg Comm meeting, but Ryan's info sounds right. We are still waiting on the minutes, and I don't really recall that there was a date set for any future meetings.]

The statewide questionnaire was discussed just prior to the webinar. Dave Woolley was going to be working with Jeff Burgess to make that happen. Maybe one of them can give an update on how that's going.

I've received no update from the DIR containing the wording at the point we helped develop it to, or if anyone else on DIR's advisory committee has made additional comments or proposed changes. The wording, last I knew and I presume still the latest version, was such that your concerns of it impacting organizations who currently field crews, whether 1-man or more, in a responsible manner are addressed pretty well. About the only organizations that would be affected are those that field 1-person crews into heavy traffic and heavy construction situations with little or no additional safety measures. For everyone else, there should be no impact except perhaps purchasing a satellite communication device for work in remote areas (about the cost of a cell phone).

It is my understanding that business owners are categorically exempt from the entire body of regulations.

Mostly because of other commitments and partly because of frustrations I've run into due to my involvement in this process, I have asked to be replaced as one of CLSA's representatives to the DIR on this issue. Unless a replacement has already been made with someone who will keep the concerns of organizations that do field 1-person crews in a responsible manner, particularly solo-surveyors and small firms, there is a possibility, if not a likelihood that the final proposed regulation could change to something that will adversely affect those organizations.

You could inquire of the Leg Comm Chairman whether that replacement has been made and if so, what are that person's views on the matter. Or, if the replacement has not been made, you could request to be brought up to speed and be appointed. If you do become involved, you will find that there are many CLSA members who are in favor of the mandate. Just what the for/against balance is, we won't know until there are results from a statewide questionnaire, but my gut feel is that it is not far off from a 50-50 split.

Whoever goes to represent CLSA should keep in mind that they are there to represent all of CLSA as best they can, not just those who completely share your view. We were on track to come to a solution which would satisfy the "for" people while not adversely impacting the "against" people.

If you don't want to or have circumstances that preclude you from getting involved, then it seems that you've done all that you reasonably can by contacting the people who are more directly involved.

[DWoolley]

Besides the standard "I don't want government in my business or telling me what to do", which is as American as apple pie, what are the reasons for the opposition?

This past week we had a 58 year old surveyor killed in Stanislaus county when he kneeled down, by himself, to look in a monument well. It is my understanding the area had been recently under construction and signs remained in the area. I was also told he had some cones around his immediate vicinity. In my training I was taught one man up, one man down when opening wells, manholes, chipping up monuments, etc. If the man up was caught looking down in the hole there was hell to pay every time. As a green surveyor it was hard to resist the urge to see what was in the hole. I was told by the party chief my curiosity wasn't limited to killing the cat. It was a serious matter. I came to understand how serious several times in the course of my career. I have had a coworker grab me by the vest as I have grabbed a coworker by the vest several times.

I have continued to work in the field throughout my career. Today I am less comfortable in the street than at any other time over the course of 30 years. Some of uncomfortable feeling is due a realization of my own mortality, but moreover it is due to cell phones. I see more drivers texting than not. Having them talk on the cell phone, although not ideal, would be much more preferable to having them looking down. In the past, we watched for someone fishing around on the floor for something dropped or someone applying makeup in the visor's mirror. These were rare instances when considering the number of drivers encountered. The key to safety was making eye contact with the driver. I cannot make eye contact with someone reading a text while driving. Now couple texting with the fact the solo operator has to be looking down at a controller when working by myself - there is no chance of eye contact. Add in fatigue over the course of a field day and the complacency over the course of a year (s) and there is little left to the imagination as to how field surveyors are being endangered.

As Evan Page explained quite well on the forum and at the OSHA meeting, Peter Ehlert's ad hominem attacks on his efforts to represent the profession notwithstanding, there isn't a one size fits all solution. If anyone has any input they should send it to their chapter Director and/or Mike Butcher, Legislative Chairman and/or Roger Hanlin, CLSA President 2016 and/or Ian Wilson, CLSA President 2017 (after January). Simply stating that you do not like the proposed language will work when polling for numbers. However, to be most effective, I would recommend writing a simple basis for the opposition and ideally, a proposed solution. Keep in mind this was initiated by Local 3 which documents about 700, 000 field man-hours annually. I suspect Local 12 has another 700,000 man-hours annually. If it was a practice issue governed by the Bus. & Prof. Code CLSA would have more of a voice. As Evan Page stated, some language will probably go through to regulation and the best the professional community can hope to do is to modify language based on professional field practice. CLSA has inserted themselves into the situation - we didn't have a seat at the table. This is the best bang for your $180 annual dues - over the last few years CLSA has become much more active on all levels of regulation and legislation. I was at the meeting with OSHA - together with Evan Page, Alex Calder and Ralph Samoni. Evan Page took the lead and by far, added the most suggestions to the language to protect those bonafide situations in which a one man crew should be allowed. It is patently unfortunate that not every member appreciated his efforts.

As for owners being exempt from the regulation? Similar to owners being exempt from carrying workman's compensation on themselves or owner-builders do not require a contractor's license there will be an exemption. If I were a betting man I would not anticipate any exemptions for an employee.

One exemption discussed was for rural areas. Defining "rural" became a discussion which transitioned to cell phone coverage. Readers can see how quickly the issue becomes more complex.

I leave you with this on the rural one man crew safety. Look on Google Earth at 37-42-40 and 120-49-52 in HMS. This is the approximate location the surveyor, Scott Atchinson, was killed. I do not concede that there should be rural exemption for any work in a street.

As a Director I will vote the way our chapter members ask me to vote. Orange County believes the members run the association and we are accountable to our chapter. If you join Orange County, the biggest chapter in the state, your voice will be heard on a vote or on an issue. We are a practice based chapter focused on the professional practice issues. You do not have to live in Orange County to be an Orange County member. Simply claim Orange County as your home chapter with the state association. I am the chapter membership chairman. Please feel free to call or email me before July 31 when our roster is due.

David Woolley
Director, Orange County

[David Kendall]

We are a practice based chapter focused on the professional practice issues.

What does this mean?

Thank you for your post, I appreciate the perspective.

[coast]

I began surveying in 1964. I have seen the traffic get worse every year. Drivers have also become much less observant, for a multitude of reasons.

In almost all situations, we utilize two-man crews in the field. It has to do with safety and efficiency, both, but primarily safety.

You cannot watch your own back!

[Mr. Smith]

Yes 2 or 3 person crew is all ready required per OSHA
work safety requirements for hazardous conditions
and this makes sense, but, How do you jump from that
to mandating just surveyors when excluding sole operators,
engineers, inspectors, school crosswalk guards.........my 2 cents.


The DIR should educate not MANDATE

Brian

[Robert Martin]

Besides the standard "I don't want government in my business or telling me what to do", which is as American as apple pie, what are the reasons for the opposition? ...

Thank you Dave and Evan for your responses, my main reason for the opposition is as follows:

A mandate will create an unreasonable burden. I've paid close attention these past few months, since this mandate has been discussed. On 4 or 5 occasions I visited construction sites as a "one man crew". There has been approximately 2.5 hours of drive time (per site visit), and 0.5 hours of discussion time with the contractor, and approximately only 1 or 2 hours of staking. In most of these cases heavy equipment was operating on the site when I was there, so I’m sure the “mandate” would apply and I would have to have my “watchman present”. But please rest assured, there was no safety issue, and the second person would simply be dead weight for the drive time and discussion time, (of course a second person makes staking go faster, so I’m all for that, but when the travels outweighs the work on the ground, I would rather go alone). In these case, because of the pace of the construction site, and the fact that there was only a few operators, I was always able to make (and maintain if needed) eye contact. There simply was no safety issue that a “watchman” would have solved.

The same goes for small topo jobs. We serve a lot of small clients, with very small budgets, and even though we may have more than 2 hours of drive time, we typically are the closest qualified firm for the project.

As I said before, I believe the decision on how many crew members should be sent out on a job should be left up to the Licensed Professional who is in “responsible charge” of the field work. Safety is something that cannot be mandated. A mandate will only make things more difficult for the honest surveyors, while the dishonest and “un-safe” surveyors will simply break the law. An in the end, (in my humble opinion) a mandate from the DIR will not make us any safer.

Thanks again,
Robert Martin

[E_Page]

Excellent articulation of your perspective Robert. As the language stood at my last involvement, your topo projects are not likely to be affected unless and only to the extent that part of the work required you work in a roadway with high or moderate traffic and/or limited sight distances.

Under the language I last saw, you are correct in assuming that your construction work would be affected. But I can understand and agree with your point under the conditions you describe. If you are not working directly in the traffic patterns of construction equipment, if the operators know that you are on site and what part of the site you are on, if the operators know to and do look out for you, and if both you and all the operators have and follow on-site safety-protocols consistently and well, then a one-person crew should be able to work as safely as a multi-person crew.

For purposes of a regulation, how would you qualify that? Or more effectively, how would you describe the conditions where a second person should be on hand?

I understand that your first and by far preferred answer is that there would be no circumstances where it should be required, and that there is a significant portion of the CLSA membership who feel likewise, I'm sure will be conveyed to the DIR advisory committee. But as I've stated previously, and as Dave explained in greater detail, some form of this regulation is going to pass just because of the various organizations arrayed and involved that want to see it put in place. Why just surveyors? Because OE first proposed it. Why not a whole host of other professions and trades that have personnel working under similar conditions? I don't know. Probably because no group with a direct interest in those professions and trades have made such a proposal or have experienced as sudden advancement in technology that has transformed work traditionally performed by working units comprised of more than one person into work that can routinely be performed by one person. Whatever the reason, surveyors won't be able to have this reg imposed on others as we have no standing in those other fields, and the "you guys are singling us out unfairly" isn't going to fly either as a regulation imposed on all surveyors (where employees are sent to field, not owners), won't be seen as unfairly burdening one portion of the profession so as to put it at a disadvantage to other portions.

Accepting, even if only for the sake of academic discussion that the regulation will happen no matter what CLSA does or does not do, if you could add or create language to protect the way you conduct staking in a safe manner, how would you word that? The most best, or really only way to come up with an effective proposal is to think of what the counter-arguments to your position would be and then address them in the language you come up with or otherwise show that the concerns become less significant because of what you propose.

Thanks for starting and continuing to add to this thread. What you've written so far, as I'm sure whatever you add will be very helpful.

[Gary Schenk]

Safety is something that cannot be mandated.

Safety can be mandated. Sometimes it has to be forced down the throats of certain employers. Unfortunate as that is, that's the way it is.

[DWoolley]

David Kendall:

You asked what I meant when I said "We [Orange County] are a practice based chapter focused on the professional practice issues."

A number years back, the Orange County Executive Committee petitioned our membership to focus on professional practice issues, almost to exclusivity.

The basic idea was to serve the professionally licensed community. The premise was if the licensees are doing well, their businesses or agencies are being served by their professional association, they will find ways to recruit people into the profession.

We no longer handout awards or plaques or conduct the outreach programs like TrigStar, scouting merit badges, etc. Although we support other chapters with these programs we no longer facilitate them on an annual basis. We realize that our volunteers have a time budget and that time should be spent on serving the licensed community. Realizing a need for money to fund professional practice programs we no longer donate to scholarships with the chapter's money. Our chapter pledges $5000 in scholarships annually. We then reach out to our members for scholarship donations - so we do not touch our chapter money. We now have a healthy budget to pursue our programs.

Examples of the Orange County chapter's work:

1.) We hired an attorney to write an employment agreement for professionals to use with their employers when they are signing work product. This allows a licensee to quit or retire and not incur the financial liability for the work completed or uncompleted while employed. The company performs a survey and the record of survey was overlooked? No financial problem for the licensee -the company must pay to complete the work. The retiree's work while employed is subject to litigation at a later date? No problem, the company is required to include the licensee, as an individual, on their errors and omissions policy. The agreement would cost more than $5000 for an individual to hire an attorney to draft. We gave it to our members as a member benefit.

2.) We have an attorney, James Anton, write articles focused on professional and business liability which are published in our newsletters.

3.) We revived the CalPoly Pomona land surveyor's conference after nearly 15 years of being dormant. This year will be their third conference in a row. These student have a civil engineering degree with a minor/emphasis on land surveying. This is a recruiting place for our professionals. The program that first year featured the very best in the business. Several of the topics presented have never been seen before or since.

4.) We have sent out letters to every city in our county and several other public agencies reminding them the California Government Code requires them to pay land surveyors within 30 days. We also asked them which controls they have in place to insure our professionals are paid in a timely manner. This is now an annual letter sent out to public agencies. We have offered to send letters to public agencies, reminding them of their legal obligations, that have not paid our members in a timely manner. This is the member benefit that serves the professional community.

5.) Our newsletter features current professional topics. Our quarterly newsletter, The Quarter Corner, is often 50-70 pages. We publish local, state and federal issues which may have an effect on our members.

6.) We write opinion papers for our members on legislation and regulations. As an example, this particular thread is about two man crews being mandated. Orange County is the only source of empirical data specific to the issue. We polled our members and the adjacent county's members to determine how surveyors practiced locally. We published our findings almost two years ago. Currently, we are working on statistics provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to write a much more comprehensive article on land surveyors.

7.) We have a Tech Czar, Rich Maher, which has allowed us to upgrade our methods of reaching members with information. Our chapter meetings are broadcast live on periscope. We believe transparency is paramount to a professional association. We welcome any member to attend our Executive Committee meetings to have input on our governance. It is not uncommon for us to have 15+ members attend these meetings. It is also not uncommon for us to routinely have 2-3 meetings a month when counting the chapter meetings, Executive Committee meetings, Director's meetings etc. On several occasions we have flown Orange County chapter members, at the chapter's expense, to Oakland to attend Board of Directors meetings to see for themselves how our Directors conduct business.

8.) Our Directors believe we serve our chapter's members. We are accountable to each of them.

9.) We support other chapters. When San Francisco set up their chapter we reached out to them to help with setting up a financial structure to take membership dues and dinner reservations online. We have provided technology support to several Orange County friendly chapters.

Mr. Kendall, I could go on, easily doubling the list of member benefits, but I believe this is enough to answer your question as to what is meant by a practice based chapter.

I will get back to the two man crew issue. As I stated, we are compiling statistics received from the BLS for a new in-depth article specific to land surveying and the land surveying injuries reported.

Please keep in mind, we are only sending our newsletters and announcements to current Orange County members. Did I mention that I am the Orange County membership chairman? Contact me before the end of July if you're interested in being a member of our practice based chapter.

DWoolley

[DWoolley]

David Kendall:

One last note, important to me personally, the Humboldt Chapter is awesome. Without the support of the good folks in your chapter the Orange County chapter would not have realized many of our successes. This is undeniable. Our chapter had the support of your chapter members and Director when we needed it the most - without their support I may not be a CLSA member today. Humboldt was not alone, but they stuck by their convictions like few others.

There is nothing I would not do to support the Humboldt chapter.

There are several chapters for which I owe a debt of gratitude.

For the record,

DWoolley

[Warren Smith]

Dave,

Thanks for that enlightenment - very commendable!

[mpallamary]

It is quite refreshing to see the association moving in the right direction. OC has made many accomplishments and, from my perspective, there is no reason the entire association cannot achieve such accomplishments!

It is very exciting.