[SBE] Certification

[Cowboy]

On Sunday 22 June 2008 07:16 pm, Albert Muick wrote:

>  I've seen some incredibly valid points and counterpoints brought up here in

>  the past few days, and Kim Sacks did a great job of summing up some

>  experiences with his local electrical board.  This is really getting kind of

>  scary.


 Kim is a hers, not a his, but that doesn't change the validity of the argument.


>  Has anyone ever seen any legal challenges to the electrical boards' attempts

>  to regulate  the electrical side of the broadcast industry?  I'm just

>  wondering if they, nationally, could be coerced to recognize the SBE cert

>  either by wooing or legal action.  At the heart of most of these "boards" is

>  a valid effort to cut down on disasters, but there is a sideline of feeding

>  business to the licensed contractors in the state or county; after all, the

>  unions were big sponsors of these boards.


 In a legal challenge, they will probably lose.
 The problem is that one would have to legally challenge this in each and
 every jurisdiction separately.
 That's a problem.


>  Having said that, I wonder why the FCC won't get involved in this?  They

>  started the downward slide when they de-regulated everything, and now it

>  seems like everyone and their brother intends to try to exert their

>  authority over the broadcast industry.


 Everyone and their brother precisely because the FCC refuses to exert
 their own authority over their own domain.


>  Much as I hate legal challenges, this seems to be the best way to set it all

>  straight, especially when FCC-licensed, SBE-certified engineers with over 30

>  years of experienced are being told they are not qualified to do their own

>  wiring and are forced to hire a contractor. 


 I don't know that they're not "qualified" just that they haven't paid the regulatory
 fees and union dues to prove to some bureaucrat who knows far less than
 they do, that they actually do know what they are doing.


>  This could very well cause 

>  station management to start re-evaluating the worth of having engineers on

>  staff, especially if they are not allowed to do their job because of local

>  rules and regulations superseding federal ones!


 Or, one could make the argument that an employee can do the owner's
 bidding, and therefore having engineer(s) on staff is in the station's better 
 interest, as the alternative is hiring unqualified "licensed" contractors at far
 more money to screw it up, potentially interrupting the revenue stream
 for days at a time, unless they wish to pay triple-overtime for another shift
 to screw it up worse.

-- 
Cowboy

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