<font color=e87400>Dan S
The question that you pose- “What can ANY organization, not just the pwna, do for your business?†-is only 2nd to Where do we come from & What is the meaning of life!
Whereas I don’t particularly believe in many organizations, I do support some, however I may not be a member of the ones I support.
This is as confusing to me as it is to you & anyone else reading it.
Here’s my view in a nutshell. Ok,, it’s a big nutshell but a small nut!
I've put the answers you seek in <b>bold</b> after each example:
Organizations tend to often grow beyond their original intention. Many which are geared to a specific group of people (the core members which the org was formed for) who are in all actuality providing more profits & oppurtunity to others “by being†a member than they are making “from being†a member. Primarily vendors. Vendors being, direct material suppliers, or law firms, insurance agency’s, accounting firms, hired help firms, office staff suppliers, office supplies suppliers insurance companies etc etc etc.. However in the same instance by being a member you can often make better progress by using the people that are using you - for information, assistance and other.
I also am a member of the COC. It serves me very well. In that organization I am a vendor (via my Pressure Cleaning Company), as is everyone else who’s a member. In the COC we are all potential clients & customers to each other & we all have access to the same business resources. Here I want to note a difference to some other views. Networking in the COC is not remotely close to networking with the IWCA or Newbies within the PWNA or Vendors in the PWNA for that matter. I am a member of the COC in 3 cities & the only one in all 3. Thus who there could be construed as my competitor, there are a couple of window guys & a lawn service or 2 & Janitorial & sweepers, however I have never met the window guys nor the lawn guys at any function annual, monthly or specials like barbeques or Grand Openings. Perhaps we just never bumped into each other perhaps they don’t participate.
<B> I get a lot out of the COC via it’s seal for marketing & customers & quality referrals.</b>
Anyway back to the PWNA. – Here’s what happens.
In order to keep this industry alive for as long as possible & recognizing acceptable profits on our time & investments as business owners we are going to inevitably have to push some form of regulation of the field to limit our competition. Now I know that some of you are cringing at this saying Cody, that’s not what an organizzation is all about. Well I have news for you. It IS what it is all about. Go & Talk to any builder & ask them what their industry & organizations have done to limit their competitive base. Why do think there is so much red tape for some many things. That red tape is put there by companies & organizations attempting to “control†their markets.
This regualtion may come in different forms.
<ol><li>In the form of actual state regulation of Power Washer Licenses. Doubtful & unlikely but maybe not impossible, at least not for some sectors. There may be a chance. In order to get state regulation it would have to be proven that pressure cleaning could cause structural deficiencies. Where I am not sure. If you hold a 4000 @ 5 against a supporting beam for 30 minutes I suppose you could burn a hole thru it. So maybe there’s a chance. With Roofs there may be a good chance since improper procedures can severly damage a roof.
<li> In the form of EPA concerns – This one would be the most likely candidate. If EPA awareness could be spiked thru the roof then this would provide a form of regulation by increasing the redtape. Along with this, it could perhaps provide a basis for state regulation outside of normal structural issues criteria by requiring that any operators of Pressure Cleaning Equipment be qualified & even perhaps licensed to operate methods containment systems, again yeah, this is a stretch but… impossible? It’ll take some folks a lot smatter than me to figure that one out.</ol>
<b>What can this do for you. It can knock out 99% of the lowballers in one fatal swoop. Enforcemect has been a forefront issue with nearly all of the regulated trade organizations for years now & still with little results. They get the regualtion but there's no money in the state of county budget to put make anyone available to go out and enforce them. They’ve hopped a few hurdles but not nearly what is needed. However the intention IS there!</b>
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Unfortunately there is a downside to the above regulation. In Florida we have many forms of state regulated contractors. Regulation in Florida typically has to do with fields in building that are structural (framing, roofing, pools, screen enclosures, plumbers) or fields which would be deemed dangerous to end-users if not done correctly (things like electrical, A/C, underground utilities). Of all the forms of regulation however there is really no viable form of enforcement.
Case in Point,
I used to build screen enclosures (Pool Enclosures, Patio Enclosures, Glass Rooms, Carports, Sheds, etc etc) to do so I was required to maintain a state regulated lic (which was yearly fees & yearly 40hrs min continued education) a lot of insurance, business address which was zoned for light industrial business min sqft 200, workers comp on my employees and an engineer on retainer. All of those items were frequently scrutinized by various parties in the contractor licensing, whom you have to deal with on a regular basis, & through the building department when you pull a permit. Thus, you had to keep them all up or you could not pull a permit or you could lose your Lic. To sum it up, it ain’t cheap being legal!
Here’s where it gets interesting. I frequently lost bids to other contractors that did not operate on the up & up. What they would do would be to sell jobs & then essentially auction it off to subcontractors who would inturn fully fab, install & complete their projects. Often not even pulling permits. The subs they would hire would have at best a county Occupational License however by law they were required to have a State License since not only were they installing the structure but they were actually fabricating it too, since they, the subs, were managing ALL of the building process at this point they were in effect making structural decisions on a non-structural license. By doing this the companies using these subs were able to save piles of money in Workers Comp, SSN, MC & professional labor rates.
How did they get away with it? Well the enforcement wasn’t there. For starters there were too few field inspectors to stay on to of the building trade thus about the only way they would get caught was when either they got popped “while working on the job†for not having a permit which was rarely noticed by a field officer on a drive by, more often they were permit popped by a someone’s crappy neighbor. The other way was when legitimate contractors that would call them in. You might think that it’d be easy to just drive around & get them busted, not so, you can’t go around the city everyday looking for guys working & then stop at every jobsite & try to find out whether or not they are legal, there not gonna say without a fight.
Why wouldn’t they stop once they got busted?
This is the real capper! Flatly put, It was cheaper for the contractors using these illegals to pay the fines than it was not to use them. The fine was only $250 a pop for illegal workers & only double the price of the permit for a no permit job, a typical permit for a screen addition is around $125. So whenever they got busted they just got slapped with a $375 fine & they were again at it the next day. On average on a screen addition you will pay around $200 bucks to WC & FICA. So if they got busted on 1 out of every 3 jobs they were still making money!
In reality they probably only got busted one out of every 20 jobs.
Other than the unscrupulous contractors with their unscrupulous subcontractors there are a ton of “Side-Jobbers†they act under the same principle as the later. It’s all about the math, Get popped pay the bill go to the next job.
In addition to these types of people there were the Independent companies that acted under an Occupational Lic only. You can get an Occ lic that allows you to complete rescreens, but no structural repairs, modifications, new installations or removal & replacements of even the same enclosure. When it comes right down to it, this lic will allow you to rescreen an enclosure but in no way allow you to run the first screw or turn a wrench in any way. Of these guys the vast majority of them do much more than their lic allows. Some do total installations, with no permit of course. Some do modifications & repairs some do this that & the other. These guys are the worst to have around after Hurricanes. After a good blow through my area & can rack in 50K net in just a few weeks I could make a $100k if it weren’t for the Occ Lic guys taking jobs that they are not legal for.
<b>So while the regulation helps keep people from getting into business. It also creates additional cost. By creating additional cost it opens up the price gap between the Legal & the Illegal tradesman the side jobbers & the Occupational Licensed Side Jobbers thus it’s nearly useless if not counter-productive</b>
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A glimpse of Hope:
For the aluminum industry there is a glimpse of hope with regards to the guys working under Occupational Licenses. Finally it appears that the AAF, Aluminum Association of Florida, has made headway in beating back the Occupational Lic’d operators. The AAF has, overtime, brought forth changes to engineering designs in screen enclosures that add the actual screencloth into the equation for maximum windloads. <I>Every screen room in different & designed to maximum windload ratings of the particular zone that it is in. On shore may be a 160mph windload zone while 5 miles off the water it may be only a 110 windload thus the lighter windload room can be build with thinner wall materials thus reducing the cost of the room</I>
With the screen being incorporated into the equation it is now considered to be a “ structural element†Thus according to the regulations set forth by the state which regulate structural installations, repairs & modifications the Occupational License will no longer be able to operate in anyway in this field. So every rescreen company in the state that operates off of an Occ Lic is soon to be out of business unless they can get State Certified, which requires about 4yr experience & a letter of recommendation & state testing on Accounting, Taxes, Osha, & Engineering.
You might be thinking that they could just operate as a side jobber, well yeah a few probably still will however the greatest impact against them here is that since they can no longer legally touch a screen enclosure they can no longer advertise to do it, this has been their biggest asset. Hence, the Screen section of the Yellow Pages in Florida is fixing to get a lot slimmer pickens. As the result of this Prices are will likely to go up some.
<b>Now the prior example which I replied to as usless is slightly offset because the Organization, while it could not help to raise enforcement for regulations that it helped to standardize, has found a way to circumvente it altogether & attacked one of the major roots of it’s problem, & very effectively I might add. This was PURE organization.</b>
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Another pertinent example here would be a little bout between a large General Contractors Organization & a Swimming Pool Contractors Organization a few of years ago. After years of having Pool builders build their pools General Contractors, aka GC’s, got wise to the fact that the Pool Companies were for the most part just subbing out most of the work to various different subs. This was legal for the Pool companies to do because they did do a certain amount of the work themselves, namely the Site Plan for the Pool & Dig the hole, after that it was all subs, 1 for the concrete, 1 of coating, 1 for the cooldecking etc etc. Well the builders being pretty smart guys decided they’d just doit themselves, they had been pitched countless times by the Pool Companies own subs for any work they could get. So after putting this together they started to build their own pools. The GC’s could build pools because their lic was a blanket to do pretty much anything they wanted to do in the industry however with electrical & plumbing they were required to have a Master sign off on any work. If the GC was a Master too, he could sign off.
As you can imagine for the Pool Builders this was not good, GC’s make up a good portion of their business. So they got with their organization together & behind a motion to find a remedy for this dilemma. Pool Builders are state regulated. What they did was filed a formal protest against the GC’s that they were merely subbing out all of the work which in effect was a violation against a regulated trade being that the subs operated the job from start to finish. There victory was not completely in their favor because the GC’s could still build Pools however in order to do so they had to complete at least 40% of the installation with their own personnel. Thus many would not bother & once again farmed them out to Pool Builders.
The above scenario was one that I got to see first hand. It started right where I am. The implication was only felt by the Pool Builders in a area of perhaps 400k population. When the Pool Companies put this to their Organization in a manor which suggested that this would be a continuing trend the entire organization acted on it. Frankly if shocked the hell out of myself & many others that they actually got what they did. It was an absolutely amazing victory although not a 100% victory but a victory none-the-less.
<b>Again here, the Little Organization went to bat, took a swing & actually won. And again this was Pure Organization.</b>
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Recent Events:
Recently in Florida a new bill has passed that will “supposedly†be great for the builders & perhaps even for some small Pressure Cleaning Firms. This Bill was ramrodded by several big Organizations so it had tens of thousands of members behind it. It has taken around a mere 10 years to get it through. The bill is Senate Bill 50 or sb-50.
In short it is a Workers Comp reform bill that will stricken several issues with workers comp. I’m still trying to decipher it & trying to get some legal interpretation of it but it’s my understanding it will do several things. I it is going to basically blow the Florida Workers Comp Exemption out of the water for several regulated trade groups. Thus the single operator that has been claiming exempt all these years & passing that savings along in his bids will now have to pay for WC just like the big boys. Also it is going to implement fines on companies that are caught working on the jobs that require WC a tally of $1000 A DAY for every day they have been on the job. That’s a definite OUCHY! In addition to enforce this bill they are adding some 500 WC field agents to the payroll to bust the illegals. Lastly it’s my understanding, & I DO NOT KNOW THIS FOR CERTAIN YET I was informed of this by a associate in Contractor Licensing, that this Bill could end up requiring Roof Cleaners to carry WC, no more exemptions. If this is the case Wahoo! It will knock 90% of the competitors out of the Roof Cleaning market. I may be going out & buying a Pitch Witch
<b>If SB-50 is all that. It’s going to shut down A BUNCH of smaller companies & enable the big dogs to get their prices back to where they belong. This is a HUGE step & it was for the most part Organization driven, that & Lawton Chiles & Jeb “the man†Bush!</b>
Where does the PWNA fit into all this. Good Question! There are a few things I do know. This thing that people keep saying “You will get out of it what you put into it†is not accurate. What is accurate is – You will get out of it what he majority vote for. If the Majority that vote are Newbies & Vendors the vote is always going to be to leave the Doors Wide Open & Welcome everyone in. What really cracks me up this that is the fact that it’s completely counter-productive & they don’t get it. I mean <b>it’s an organization which seemingly concentrates primarily on creating competition for themselves. That’s sort of an oxymoron</b>
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And so Finally, to answer why you pose a question that is so difficult to respond to.
While an organization can assist in increasing regulation & red tapewhich can be good for the individual businesses that an afford it, you are also incuring additional operating expenses. When you increase operating expenses you increase cost to the customer. Increasing cost to the customer may turn them off to cleaning frequency, if they go from a quarterly account to a bi-annual account then you are losing money in the deal. If you get the illegals working your market, which would be inevitable, it is going to decrease the price gap with which you can compete by raising your bottom line. Enforcement will be difficult because in many areas the individuals cleaning are not responsible for their run-off, that weight is on the back of the customer, thus if the illegal gets popped for illegal discharge he gets slapped on the hand, the customer gets fined & the illegal is simply onto the next job.
The scenarios that played out to the favor of the Organizations above were not quick in coming. The AAF one has played out for nearly 20 years. The WC one for 10-15 years. The Pool Builders ~v~ the GC’s probably 3-5 years. Thus even if we managed to get a some form of regulation, state or merely EPA what will it do for us? Enforcement could be long in coming & in the meantime our profits are being slashed by compliance. I am long term planner, tis why I make my post, but 20 years for a slim chance maybe?
Along with that these organizations have done some pretty questionable things. The AAF (primarily) & a couple others were the major proponents behind Florida swimming pool barrier laws. Basically put the law says the you have to have a barrier around your pool from all sides. If you have no fence, you have to have a pool enclosure. Great for the AAF members but bad for a lot of other people. The law was because of issues of children drwoing in swimming pools. Evidently you have to protect your neighbors kids in florida too. An example of where this is dumb is when the home is on the river of a lake. The river or lake is right there & open but you better have a barrier around that pool.
To make things worse. Baby Barrier companies argued this wasn’t enough & lobbied for an additional barrier , min 30†high, to be required between rear exit(s) of your home & the Pool. So now along with having a pool, you have to have an enclosure & a baby fence. The baby fences are removable & 90% of the people that have them never set them up, even when they have kids. For some reason these aweful parents that do this think that the double Lock on their rear doors will keep their children from getting out & too the Pool.
There’s a mile more I could write about things & ways that Organizations can be counter-productive at times & how they really could not careless for joe homeowner they operate in the best interest of the majority vote & for themselves. This is not always a bad thing however, even where I hated the barrier law for Pools it made me a boat load of money since it pretty much made it where every home in Florida would require a Pool Enclosure. In many new neighbor hoods in my area there are no fences allowed thus Pool Enclosures are required by the HO associations when pools are installed so,, Lots of Pool Enlosures. Screwed the freedom of choice for having a pool but sure did line my pocket.
In the end, as in my examples above, Organizations played key roles in some prety major changes, one of which may smartly affect the Pressure Cleaning Industry.
So there ya go, If you made it this far I hope you are taking something away from it.
