How about instead of arguing about who is right or wrong and who said what, is it possible to find a solution? I mean, with all this division the regulators can run right over you guys. I think that the problem is the orgs are trying to be all encompassing and it is not working. If you model after the window cleaners or the hood cleaners, you do not see this kind of division. Yeah there is some but not like here. Maybe there needs to be separate orgs for commercial pressure washing, residential pressure washing, fleet and equipment washing, parking garage cleaning and so on because even though they are all spraying water, they all have different things that they have to deal with.
A guy washing a truck has to deal with the grease and oil run off where a guy washing houses does not. A parking garage has different problems and solutions than a sidewalk or a deck.
Maybe instead of trying to attack everything at one time you need to settle on one aspect and get that ironed out with regulators. Maybe start with something easy like residential cleaning and get those BMPs in place before you tackle the more complicated commercial cleaning.
Thanks for that well thought out response Pat.
The problem is there are two prevailing views that are polar opposites. Two entirely different philosophies.
On the one hand you've got guys who believe some or all of the following:
1) We don't need to be afraid of competition, the market and quality of work will set the prices.
2) We don't need to be afraid of local contractors. There's enough work to go around.
3) We don't need the government to scare us into caring about the water quality for our kids, we already care about it and do our work accordingly, responsibly and within the law
4) We don't need to turn in other contractors to gain more business because our quality stands on it's own, and they will eventually fail anyway.
5) We don't need to make environmental rules tailored to the way we work to push others out of business. Somebody might come along with a better idea later and we can all prosper from it.
6) We don't need to continually try to raise our prices. We get paid fairly for what we do.
On the other hand you've got guys who believe some of all of the following:
1) Competition must be crushed any way possible because they keep making them have to improve to keep customers.
2) Local Contractors are the enemy. They have to be banned from coming to any schools they might teach or any other learning situations.
3) The government it there for them to use as a tool to destroy other contractors (like coming down from San Francisco and Texas and calling in a report to the Las Vegas Code enforcement that hazardous waste and chemicals are at my house, yes, I have the report right here, normally I would have told them to get off my property, but this time I invited them to look for themselves, and of course, there was nothing there to find)
4) They believe that no contractor could ever be environmentally responsible because they themselves are not. Satellite photos and the lack of manifests for waste tell the whole story. It is impossible for them to believe that every one is not like them. That is why they always call us liars, because they can't fathom the idea that someone could function in this world without lying.
5) They believe that prices are always in need of rising. Nevermind the fact that the country is broke, millions are out of work and suffering, It's too hard to buckle down, reduce expenses and streamline procedures, it's much easier to use the government to scare the crap out of customers to make them pay what they already don't have.
There are other differences also.
The fact is, Pat, this is what is wrong with our entire country. For decades we have tried to work together, Democrats and Republicans. No one would take a stand and say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! One side is right and the other is wrong. If we had done that years ago our country wouldn't be in the mess it is in.
We don't need to work together as an industry. We need to draw battle lines, put ourselves to work fighting for what we believe in and may the side that is right win.
You mention the window cleaners and hood cleaners. There have been some virtual bloodbaths in the Hood cleaning fights. Maybe you just don't know about them. I don't know so much about the window cleaners, but I know the roof cleaners are divided also.
Your idea about dividing up into all the different types of cleaning has a lot of merit. You are right, they are all very different.
The one thing the UAMCC is doing that has never been done before is relying on local contractors to deal with local problems. When they need help, the UAMCC plans to be there to try to help them.
That is a far cry from going to cities where there are no problems and introducing new problems like what happened here with Jim. He went to the EPA guy in Carson City and they presented a false, (as usual) perception of what cleaning a garage really is. Most of what comes out of garages is tire rubber. There is some oil, but the black stuff Jim shows on his videos is mostly tire rubber, easily taken care of with simple filtration. Yet he presents it as some kind of arsenic just waiting to kill everyone within miles.
This time it backfired and the Permit issuer would not allow him to clean the garage. That is exactly what should have happened and is poetic justice for his misrepresentation of the facts.
The problem is, Robert and Jim plan to do the same in Tennessee, Pat. And Mississippi, and Florida etc, etc. They are a rolling wrecking ball for the industry that puts food on our table. And for no good reason. Our impact on the environment is already minimal and most contractors worth their salt are already doing what they need to in order to keep the environment safe. That is why we have the wash water control training. It's not that difficult.
No, we don't need to work together. Some of us need to come together and crush the forces that would starve our families in order to make 24 cents a foot and take yachts to a ballgame just to make themselves feel important.
But we don't need to resort to their tactics. All we need is a few good contractors willing to give up some of their time to help others.
