Proposed By-Law Changes

February 3, 2019

“Hudson River Waterfront” | ,Colin Campbell Cooper

As the catalyst for rallying the $300 billion education facilities industry to lower #TotalCostofOwnership with participation in consensus standard development for the past 25 years we maintain close collaboration with the American Nationals Standards Institute (ANSI) federation. We have been the most effective voice for the User-interest in the education facilities industry and we necessarily collaborate with competitor stakeholders — Producer Interests and General interests, as ANSI defines them — who have the advantage of being able to demonstrate to their leadership a direct and countable link between their participation cost and increased revenue.

Standard development bodies in every developed nation provide what is, in affect, a shadow government for technologies that provide safety and economic growth. For example, with the foundation built upon ANSI Essential Requirements: Due process requirements for American National Standards, ANSI provides a level playing field for the user-interest should the user-interest decide to use it. As we have documented and explained; apart from Standards Michigan, there is negligible participation by the education facilities industry in codes, standards and regulation development apart from the organizations that we catalyzed (identified in our ABOUT). The weakness of the user interest — seen by all global standards developers in public infrastructure markets — is a problem not unrelated to the problem of participatory democracy found in the classical economic theories of “Tragedy of the Commons” and the “Free-Rider Problem”.

So it is with interest that we examine a proposal released on December 21st to revise the ANSI By-Laws for any changes that effect the user-interest who is at such an economic disadvantage against manufacturers, insurance companies, labor unions and enforcement organizations. The solicitation for member comment is linked below:

ANSI Publishes Proposed Revisions to By-Laws | Members Are Invited to Submit Comments by February 4, 2019

Comments are due February 4th.

As an advocate for the user interest we find no changes; only some clarification in the meaning of “Balance”, as explained in the document linked below:

18-351 ANSI FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ON BY-LAW PROPOSAL CHANGES COMMENTS DUE FEBRUARY 4 2019

To paraphrase:

Question: How do the proposed new By-Laws deal with the issue of balance?

Answer: No changes are made to the text of the current By-Laws regarding the use of the word “balance,” which is one of several factors the Board Nominating Committee considers when selecting new Board members. The word “balance” is also used in the ANSI Essential Requirements, but means something different in that context. In the Essential Requirements, the word “balance” means that “no single interest category constitutes more than one-third of the membership of a consensus body dealing with safety-related standards or no single interest category constitutes a majority of the membership of a consensus body dealing with other than safety-related standards.” See Essential Requirements at Section 2.3. In the By-Laws, however, the word “balance” is not used in such a numeric fashion. The By-Laws use the word “balance” to convey a diversity of member input without dominance by any one group. “Balance” defined this way is considered by the Board Nominating Committee in selecting Board candidates, along with a number of specific characteristics, such as expertise, background, leadership skills, willingness to participate and inter-organizational relationships. “Balance” defined in this fashion is also one of the measures used in selecting new members to other committees of ANSI, in accordance with the operating procedures of those committees.

The bulk of the announcement and paperwork is restricted to ANSI-members only. As ANSI members, however, we do have access to the redlines describing the organizational changes; most of which deal with governance of committees directly to the ANSI Board. You may communicate directly with Petra Valentin ([email protected]) at ANSI on anything regarding this commenting opportunity or even ANSI membership.

Academic units devoted to public policy, technology, innovation and management may have an interest in this for educational purposes. It is difficult to imagine any student graduating from any of the programs just listed cannot be familiar with the global standards system. Feel free to click in any day at 11 AM Eastern time. Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.