California Surveyors Forums

DWoolley wrote: Thu Jan 05, 2023 5:46 pm [... sob stories and running into traffic snipped...]
Impress me with what you write next.

It appears that you have mistaken yourself for someone I should consider impressing.
I think if you dish out few more insults and go on with supercilious pontificating and sob stories about how no-one listens to you and therefore they are running all of surveying into the ground, I might even want to try harder to impress you - well, at least in your own mind.

I will leave you with a Tolstoy quote, as I don't have any teenage cowboy movie phrases: "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."

Bryan, had I joined the union at the begining of my career, right out of school the same way many Fresno and Pomona graduates do, I wouldn't have hat to futz around with the non union side of the industry to get my field experience.

I took their test, passed it, and based on everything, I was classified somewhere in the chairman category, with a quick path to a party chief. Union was ready to dispatch me as soon as I signed up, because they never have enough women to satisfy their minority requirement.

At the same time, point of begining of my career here in the US, I had gotten the advice to not bother with the union, it is for highschool dropouts. You have a degree, you don't need the union.

Sure, I didn't need the union for education, but I did need the union to advocate for me as a minority which was openly discriminated against and harrassed. By myself, I was defenseless.

I know some here will call this a tiresome sob story, and they are very mistaken. I overcame all the crap that many didnt have to deal with, because I could. This doesn't mean there things are manufactured or non existant on our industry. As you can see some of our leaders, who should be concerned with the condition of the profession wish it would just go away. This actually makes them complicit.

I'm sure I would have encountered some of this in the union, and I have encountered a lot of this on non union construction sites, however, talking back at some dolt laborer, or your peer does not include power inequality. They are easy to proverbially thump up side the head with a 4 foot lath or something bigger. When the unwanted advances and a sundry variety of unpalatable offers come from your supervisors, company owners, deputy county surveyors etc... those who are supposedly in a position to sign for you (or not), respected members of communities and associations, you dont have a leg to stand on trying to fight it.

I believe being unionized would have helped with this. Getting my field experience early, and some protection for minorities.

Back to field experience, 12 years in I would have been much more likely to have 50% field and 50% office experience. I would not have had trouble gettin office work, and here's why. (A) I have a degree, most of what you learn in school is office work. Here's how my first day at work at my first job went. Here's a grading plan, here's a parcel map, here's an HP 286 computer with L&L cogo on it, we need you to calc this for staking. Oh, ok, same shit we did in school, I was done with the calcs in a day (one parcel, commercial building). Someone checked it tbe second day, I printed out the radial stakeout sheets, made a plot plan (stuff we already did in school), prepped the cut sheets, and off it went. Then for next 6 months I was getting piles and piles of construction calcs to do.
This is not a skill I would have forgotten in 2 or 3 years in the field, turning me into someone who had to go from a PC in the field to a zero in tbe office. My goal has never been to be a life long party chief, women in general don't have trouble getting office work in surveying, and not having been in tbe union since Apprentice 'A', I would have not been indentured to a point you have to pay the union back for the education if you leave too early. Also, Union does not force you to only work in the field, most union people who switch to the office keep paying their union dues.

You know why the 'women in surveying' groups exist? Because most dont believe they can speak up about these kinds of things in the industry at large without being blackballed, or as you see here, accused of telling annoying sob stories. Keep it under the rug and don't annoy the boys is the message. Act like a man (of course if you do then they question your sexuality, as if it is anyone's business at work).

I was very forthcoming in my paperwork too. Heads of the board at the time were George Schambek and Howard Brunner. Brunner called me personally 3 days before the test to 'educate me' that being a field supervisor of 2 to 4 crews for 2 years was not a qualifying field experience in spite of the signing LS saying it is, then went on to tell me how he cant make sense out of the rest. 'If you are an office person who goes in the field here and there, you are not getting to be in responsible charge, especially being a woman. You are probably a rear chainman at best. You should look into the union and do it the right way. Etc. It was a 5 or 10 minute conversation.

George Schambek, whom I knew personally and have even done some work for said he ok'd my experience, but Bruner had reversed his decision.

If you dont believe I am being honest, something you said seems to have suggested it, feel free to ask the board for a copy of my application, if they still keep those records, and see it for yourself.

Their final decision at the time, if I remember right was over 100 months of responsible charge in the field, and either zero or 2 months in the field.

There were many discussions at CLSA level at this time, because apparently I was not the only one that went through this. I remember many CLSA plus union people standing up and speaking on the matter how nothing short of a party chief, especially union party chief should be admissible for a year of responsible charge in the field. That sentiment lasted a few years. It was a part of a reason why I took a 6 year detour into civil engineering. If I cant get qualifying field experience in surveying, why bother with surveying.

Regarding Licensing, you asked how I think union is a better more viable way to get licensed... in my case, it would have been, in order to take advantage of access to field experience. Eventually I had connected with several other women in surveying, also college, Fresno grads, and they all joined the union for this very reason. I believe the only one that I know of that didnt go yhe union route was Kim Holtz, I gather anecdotally that she worked at the County of Orange, under John Pavlik for a time.
Since I have not been a fan of the union most of my career it took a long time to try and look at things in hindsight and admit to myself that the union route would have been better.

Keep in mind that this was a path of joining the union after getting a 4 year college degree in surveying.

Union classes alone are usually not sufficient. I think it part the 'union outcome' happens because it is not designed to produce LS's, it is designed to produce construction industry with construction layout technicians.

How do you motivate union people to do more, really, you cant. 15 dollar per hour increase for an LS would be a good motivation. We do this by increasing professionalism and business education in our ranks. Let's say, for simplicity sake of a calculation, a union chief makes $70 an hour in the union, but a well rounded LS makes $85 an hour average, as a project surveyor. There's a good incentive. Some will take it, many will not, afterall a lot of people who start at apprentice 'A' level are GED holders with no experience. Being a union party chief may be a huge accomplishment for some people considering what they had to start with.

You want more college people in? Show them they can earn a more comfortable living with more effort. 20 years in, GED and union school = $70,
20 years in, degree, continued ed, and an LS = $90 and more growth opportunity into management and business ownership.

Is it all about money, well, yes, we are doing a professional business. Why should making money in business be a bad thing? We're not doing this for a hobby, except maybe a rare bird.

How do we get there... this is why I want to go through the effort of developing some business planning. Reason to through the effort designed to navigate a variety of markets and conditions, is because it helps clarify the path(s). (You don't have to trust what I am saying, read up on business planning, there are gigaflops of information out there.) We need to back off from getting lost in random detail for a short time, do some research, create some framework, prioritize and delegate detailed tasks to whomever is willing and well positioned to do them. It can be done concurrent with ongoing detailed efforts.

Here's one possible outcome of business planning, dealing with the union, some tasks will be quick(er) and easier, others, like redefining the union role and positioning in surveying, long and slow process.

Even discussions like this, newer CLSA officers being eager to do something, and then floundering trying to figure out what to do, what is useful... this should be communicated by the existing leadership... it is not. We're lost in a discussion over union mishandling their retirement fund... as if we have a lot of influence over that.
Imagine how much fruitful our efforts would be if this time was pointed at some lower hanging fruit, or more specific steps? But they are not... you know why? Disorganization. Everyone, or way too many people are shooting at the hip, hoping something will stick.

I was listening, at our last state board meeting, when Kevin Hills asked, how do I get more Caltrans people active in CLSA. Noone will tell him directly because CLSA comes across as a 'good ole boys club's, and most of Caltrans people see themselves as outsiders, for a number of reasons. How do we apply a 'getting to yes' principle on this? I'm sure thete are common interests in there somewhere, but we cant get to those because egos are in the way (very likely other things too)... how do we get past this barrier? Research it, see what all is at play, break it down into manageable tasks, proritize, delegate (aka business planning), and then measure progress.

Bit I digressed far from the topic at hand.

Why did the union get so much power in surveying? Because they filled a need before other surveyors did, and figured out how to get paid more than other, non unionized surveyors, so it attracted workers. As Jim Frame said, they got organized.

Connie,

Surveyors have been around long before the Union. For nearly 100 years we did just fine without them. Heck we have been licensing surveyors since around 1891 far before the Union ever was involved.

My only understanding on why the Union even came about was so that Surveyors could get on larger projects during the booming times in construction and development of the country.

It wasn’t to progress the profession and make it better and stronger, it was simply an in for them to get their other trades on projects that they otherwise were not capable of handling.

I have resigned myself to the next CBarrett haranguing to further this conversation. I will read the third Shambeck and Brunner diatribe, offering life's unfortunate trials and tribulations, all 1835 words of it, rather than celebrating professional life and licensure as an equal, in the hope folks will continue to constructively point out issues and perspectives on this topic.

At issue is the union is actively working against the professional status of land surveyors. My thought is to work to bring these folks into the fold by changing the union curriculum to produce licensed land surveyors. Licensure would disincentivize the union from deregulating the profession and equally important, differentiate their members from the tradesman that are self-preforming at a breakneck rate.

Licensure of the union folks would not slow the dispatching directly to contractors. However, their licensure would inherently be a recognition the work falls under the practice act – further removing the incentive to deregulate. The union folks fight amongst themselves over which work belongs to which union. This would benefit IUOE.

I believe we should further regulate the profession to create more distinctions between the unlicensed work and the professionals - effectively claiming more work, with the union's support, from the unlicensed tradesman.

The alternative is to lose the battle to deregulate. The current California law places construction, topography (including GIS data collection) and site plans under the practice of land surveying. We have surrendered large swathes of the work. Due to the technology, foreseeably, we will lose most of this work in the not-so-distant future - leaving little for the few.

A Few Challenges and the Proposed Solutions:

1. The Crownholm case is a guy providing site plans for $99 up to $159. His declaration states he has performed 42,000 over the last 9 years, approximately 4,700 annually. In most jurisdictions in California, the least expensive site plan would be, $2500? Granted, not all of his site plans were in California, but 42,000 x $2500 is $105M in work. None of which was performed by a licensed land surveyor. Substitute the scofflaw "record boundary" folks into the equation for $1500, $63M.

Legislative solution: Require site plans to be monumented. I would include ALTAs and other property surveys also. Required untagged monuments accepted as control to be tagged. This triggers the filing of a record – an act rightfully legislated to protect the public.

2. Almost every project in every jurisdiction requires a site plan. As a contract City Surveyor I review the site plans in several jurisdictions. Those performed by a land surveyor seldom show monuments and/or do not have records of survey when an 8762 trigger is encountered. More specifically, I have to call the engineer to find the surveyor because the work product is usually unsigned and stamped. I require monuments to be shown, sufficient information to properly determine the boundary and records of survey when triggered. I provide the citation to the law in writing, on letterhead, as a condition of approval of a multimillion-dollar property, entitlement process or construction/improvement project. More often that not, rather than take the letter to the client and ask for a bonafide change order the surveyors call me and try to get the condition removed.

War story, reviewing a site plan last week I was able to determine a privately owned restaurant chain with a market cap of $11billion is developing a site and the site plan boundary is incorrect by approximately 1.5 feet. Why would a surveyor break the law and provide insufficient survey for a company worth $11B? The surveyor struggled a little until I pointed out the boundary was probably off 1.5' – which he confirmed after sending out a crew.

Legislative solution: Same as 1 above.

3. The self-performing contractors on large scale construction projects total more than $1.4B. Construction surveying, plugged at 2% of the cost on a large project, another $25M back to the professional firms. This is for three projects.

Solution: Remove land surveying from the contractor's scope of work. In conversations with AGC and UCONN they would welcome removal of land surveying from their contracts – design build would be the one exception due to the law. The worst violations I witness are by land surveyors working directly for contractors. This is readily apparent on monument preservation for large overlay projects. A city hiring a land surveyor through a QBS process rewards quality firms willing to do the work and prevents the moral hazard faced by small budgets and buried monuments. We need to hardnose the QBS process by pulling this work out of the construction bids.

4. A fully burdened union party chief or non-union party chief on a prevailing wage job cost approximately $90 an hour – cost includes the failing pension plan. Frankly, this is an unsustainable costs that prompts one person crews in a survival mode. A one person crew is a death knell over time (44% are over 61 years old). The business model based on labor, making money on people hours, fails due to the fully burdened costs and industry attrition rate.

Solution: Removing survey from the contractors – see 3 above – makes the labor costs immaterial to the contractor statutorily awarded their work by the lowest responsible bid. Additionally, more importantly, licensing these field oriented folks (including the union folks) moves them into a position to train, supervise and manage the work being self-performed – a hedge on the advancement and use of technology. Unity through licensure. In today's world of technology, the licensed surveyor would be better suited as a quasi-inspector to protect the owners (public agency) and to protect the design. Land surveyors working for contractor's face a moral hazard reporting to the engineer and/or owners when their contactor client makes a mistake or is gaming the project. I most often work on the management side of large construction projects – I routinely have found surveyors making bad choices when faced with this dilemma.

There is more, but I am limiting myself to 1,000 words, (exactly 1,000).

DWoolley

Additionally, removing land surveying from the construction contractor's bid means the contractors will request more survey work because they are not paying for it. More importantly, this also means it costs the contractors money - cost that wouldn't be incurred -to self-perform a service that is provided by the owner at no additional cost to the contractor.

DWoolley

Great ideas, Dave. Over the last few years, we have taken monument preservation out of our construction contracts. We contract directly with local surveyors or perform that portion of the project in-house. It is working much better (usually) because it gives us more control and is not seen as a line item to minimize.

bryanmundia wrote: Sat Jan 07, 2023 12:23 pm Connie,

Surveyors have been around long before the Union. For nearly 100 years we did just fine without them. Heck we have been licensing surveyors since around 1891 far before the Union ever was involved.

My only understanding on why the Union even came about was so that Surveyors could get on larger projects during the booming times in construction and development of the country.

It wasn’t to progress the profession and make it better and stronger, it was simply an in for them to get their other trades on projects that they otherwise were not capable of handling.

Sure, most of the world doesn't have the union, and surveyors across the world tend to be more respected as professionals.
Once we 'clean up' the profession so to speak, this may be possible here too.
The path to those is not to belittle the union and fight with them.
The path is to leave them in the dust.
I managed to get past all of it in spite of a pile of obstacles an average surveyor doesnt have to deal with, and without making enemies with union people. It's very possible.
First of all, it's easier to change ourselves, where we have more influence, than trying to change the union, where we have little influence except maybe legislative battles.
Here's an example, DW keeps saying how caltrans contracts out to union companies, and allows non licensed people to do field work. How do we fix that? Not by beefing with them. Roll up our sleeves and figure out a way to provide a better service. Show them how it's done, instead of pointing out how they are not doing it right. Do it so well that companies will start changing their business models. Focus should be on what we are doing.

Sure, it is necessary to keep an eye on tbe union, and other threats, weaknesses along with taking advantage of opportunities and strengths.

This is why I want to take stock of the bigger picture first, it is a tool to finding a better way. If you do some research, even the Union does this.

You may be of tbe opinion that union is not serving the industry needs, but somehow, they remain influential, and continue to serve the industry. Figure out what need tbey are filling, and do it better.

Trust me, I'm no fan of unions, having come from a communist country where nearly everything was unionized (except professions), unions in general tend to make me nauseated. I was a very easy audience to convince to avoid union. Like I said with current state off affairs, hindsight, that wasn't a good advice.

Back to how we make changes, by doing the work where we actually have influence. Leave the union in the dust. Show the young grads that they don't have to join to 'be safe'. Build a large non-signatory firm... show them the way. Capture other markets where union has less influence... etc.

Sounds like our leaders are disinterested in how minorities fare in this business, while they themselves use the DBE designation.
Very disingenuous, and not healthy for the profession.

Some of these attitudes are the very reason OC chapter is having trouble attracting people, and having a functioning board. One person is looking to push everyone else out of the way, and run it as a despot.

What I shared is not a sob story, I overcame all of it, without anyone's help, especially not DW. I am sharing it because I have first hand experience on some of the things that need fixing.

This is typical of what happens when a member of minority shares what is happening. Someone engages in belittling them and painting them as a cry baby. This is a form of bullying. It is unbecoming of CLSA state board members to engage in bullying. Unethical, and unprofessional.

If a board member can not deal with state of profession in a cordial and considerate, and thoughtful manner, perhaps this is not a suitable position for them. We all have behavioral standards to be mindful of. Certain people being continually excused by their peers is unacceptable.

If one looks at the history, haranguing amd belittling began by DW, because he was hearing things he doesnt want to hear. Same thing happens at our board meetings, when DW doesnt get his way, a serious of attempts at insults follow. Any thought beyond what DW unilaterally decided are what annoys him to a point of a, well he made a nice projection, a harangue. Many of us have heard them and been the targets of them.
Since board meeting are public, I would like to invite a broader audience to see for themselves.

Why are we so accepting of this kind of bullying?

Connie,

Have you ever heard of the saying “you mess with the bull you’re going to get the horns”?

What I suggest you do is realize that you are not the only one who has ever had to overcome adversity to achieve your goals. That is something that is very common amongst all of humanity.

Simply put I would imagine that every person in this forum can remember of an adverse situation that brought them to a point of the decision of quitting or move past it. I know that early in my career I had quite a few of those moments. Granted I didn’t have to deal with any of the gender issues that you speak of but I had my own issues that were in my eyes incredibly difficult to overcome and required me to look inwards and reflect and move on.

I suggest that instead of thinking your are the answer that you look inwards and see what you can do as a professional. Where can you make an impact. Sitting on this forum posting about off topic ideologies and degrading other members is not constructive.

I have tried to turn this conversation back to where it originally was and between you and Dave it seems like a never ending battle. Let’s just get to the point, you and Dave don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things and approach things completely different. Start your own posts and quit derailing mine. Thanks.

bryanmundia wrote: Sun Jan 08, 2023 2:36 pm Connie,

Have you ever heard of the saying “you mess with the bull you’re going to get the horns”?

What I suggest you do is realize that you are not the only one who has ever had to overcome adversity to achieve your goals. That is something that is very common amongst all of humanity.

Simply put I would imagine that every person in this forum can remember of an adverse situation that brought them to a point of the decision of quitting or move past it. I know that early in my career I had quite a few of those moments. Granted I didn’t have to deal with any of the gender issues that you speak of but I had my own issues that were in my eyes incredibly difficult to overcome and required me to look inwards and reflect and move on.

I suggest that instead of thinking your are the answer that you look inwards and see what you can do as a professional. Where can you make an impact. Sitting on this forum posting about off topic ideologies and slander and other members is not constructive.

I have tried to turn this conversation back to where it originally was and between you and Dave it seems like a never ending battle. Let’s just get to the point, you and Dave don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things and approach things completely different. Start your own posts and quit derailing mine. Thanks.

Slander?
I would recommend you prove or retract it.

CBarrett wrote: Sun Jan 08, 2023 5:43 pm Slander?
I would recommend you prove or retract it.

Fixed, thanks.

I appreciate the professionalism shown by BryanMundia regarding this post.

Also understand that surveyors are members of a number of Unions throughout California, not just Local 3 & 12.

I have more to say but continually delete my lines of text regarding the previous professional posts.

John Williams
Land Surveyor

bryanmundia wrote: Sun Jan 08, 2023 2:36 pm Connie,

Have you ever heard of the saying “you mess with the bull you’re going to get the horns”?

What I suggest you do is realize that you are not the only one who has ever had to overcome adversity to achieve your goals. That is something that is very common amongst all of humanity.

Simply put I would imagine that every person in this forum can remember of an adverse situation that brought them to a point of the decision of quitting or move past it. I know that early in my career I had quite a few of those moments. Granted I didn’t have to deal with any of the gender issues that you speak of but I had my own issues that were in my eyes incredibly difficult to overcome and required me to look inwards and reflect and move on.

I suggest that instead of thinking your are the answer that you look inwards and see what you can do as a professional. Where can you make an impact. Sitting on this forum posting about off topic ideologies and degrading other members is not constructive.

I have tried to turn this conversation back to where it originally was and between you and Dave it seems like a never ending battle. Let’s just get to the point, you and Dave don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things and approach things completely different. Start your own posts and quit derailing mine. Thanks.

bryanmundia wrote: Mon Jan 09, 2023 5:58 am

CBarrett wrote: Sun Jan 08, 2023 5:43 pm Slander?
I would recommend you prove or retract it.

Fixed, thanks.

Thank You!

Correction on my end, Dave emailed me to clarify that he does not have the DBE status.

Slander?

It would have been libel, not slander.

This thread mentions libel and slander. Please remember that as land surveyors, we are all family. Families do not always agree with each other, but I hope that we will always respect each other. I have quoted Will Rogers before; he said that he never learned anything from someone that agreed with him. I trust that we, as land surveyors can build on that.

FYI, I attended a meet-and-greet this morning with Anthony Molina, the new CLSA lobbyist. It was a small gathering (Anthony and 5 LSs), and I/we raised the issues of professional status in labor classification, encroachment on licensed practice by industry, and malfeasance by lowballing licensees, among others.

FWIW, 3 of the LSs are old farts (including me), 1 is approaching 60, and the other is mid-40s.

Anthony has a lot to learn about the profession, but he seems eager to begin.

Jim Frame wrote: Wed Jan 25, 2023 12:29 pm ... I/we raised the issues of professional status in labor classification, encroachment on licensed practice by industry, and malfeasance by lowballing licensees, among others.
...

Jim:

Did the group all share the same level of concern? Offer any additional concerns?

Did anyone, maybe not a forum reader or contributor, have any new ideas or perspectives as to turning the tide?

Thank you for posting that information. We need groups of people having those types of meetings and conversations.

DWoolley

The level of concern for the profession in general was about the same all around, but the senior contingent understandably sees it as less of an personal existential threat.

None of the others in attendance read this forum, as far as I know. And I didn't hear any new ideas put forth.

Perhaps the best outcome of the meeting was a willingness by Anthony to reach out to those in attendance (likely via the younger LS, who is a personal friend of Anthony's and the one who organized the meeting) for consultation if/when he comes up against an issue on which he lacks perspective.