| Author |
Message |
Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI
Senior Member
Username: rliebing
Post Number: 725
Registered: 02-2003
| | Posted on Friday, October 19, 2007 - 08:26 am: |    |
ANY INSIGHT OR COMMENTS ON THE FOLLOWING AND HOW THE NOW THIRD SET OF DOCUMENTS WILL IMPACT OUR WORK--
Kormantary: Engineers Champion Their Own Contract Documents
Posted by kormanr at 10/12/2007 4:20 PM
Remember the recent ENR story with the magazine cover showing the peapod and peas?
It's weeks later and I'm still mystified by some of the dealings among the industry associations over the subject of that story, contract standard forms of agreement.
Associations representing 700,000 designers (ASCE, ACEC, AIA and NSPE) wrote a letter that ripped the misrepresentations they say are in my ENR cover story on the new ConsensusDocs program whose key players include AGC, ASA and several owner associations.
Although I spent some time in the story trying to pin down whether engineers are in or out of ConsensusDocs, I didn't finish the job. Let me declare now that engineers are unequivocally out except for observing the process through individuals not authorized to make any decisions or official review on behalf of the associations.
Engineers will continue to publish the EJCDC standard forms of agreement and have no intention of joining ConsensusDocs.
There's more going on here than I'm being told, but here's some speculation.
Engineers seem annoyed that AGC staff suggested to me, and that I wrongly conveyed the impression, that engineers could join, participate or have anything official to do with ConsensusDocs other than observe. No way, engineers say.
I believe the rivalry among the associations is partly economic. AIA's dominant franchise in standard forms of agreement is at least a million dollars in annual revenue and maybe more. EJCDC documents may be worth several hundred thousand to some member associations. That's big money for the smallish associations that represent our industry designers. AGC and its allies in ConsensusDocs want to build their model contract revenue as well as put forward their documents as the "consensus" of what's fair and best for owners and projects.
Note that the AIA updated documents are due out next month and ConsensusDocs upstaged them partly through the timing of the ConsensusDocs roll-out. Note how sophisticated AIA's document program is and that AIA retained a separate public relations consultant just for the 2007 document update roll-out. Don't ignore the fact that AIA's top staff member, who had no direct complaint about AIA's treatment in the ENR story, co-signed the letter to the editor with the engineers. Watch for the engineers to ramp up the marketing of their documents as the overall contest heats up.
You can thank ConsensusDocs (and the way events were conveyed in the ENR story) for sparking engineer-architect consensus on this matter at least. |
Richard Howard, AIA CSI CCS LEED-AP
Senior Member
Username: rick_howard
Post Number: 152
Registered: 07-2003
| | Posted on Friday, October 19, 2007 - 10:48 am: | |
AGC's heavy-handed campaign against AIA included having their board unanimously reject endorsement of AIA A201-2007 on October 12, and then issue a scathing press release criticizing the document as being unfair.
Our legal department recently reviewed the AGC 420 design-build agreement and directed us to not enter into a contract with anything other than AIA documents. AGC places such "fair-minded" responsibilities on the designer as a duty to provide unlimited redesign services as necessary to keep the project on schedule and a "pay when paid" clause that could result in not getting compensated for work performed.
AIA documents are constructed to assign various contractural responsibilities to the party most in control of that issue. That seems obviously fair and equitable and is the reason that they have gained such widespread acceptance.
If you study the documents in detail, you have to wonder how AGC can argue that they are trying to promote a more collaborative relationship among construction team members. The "consensus" they are trying to promote seems to be that the design professions, most often the least affluent parties in the construction process and already grossly undercompensated for the amount of risk they face, should be the ones getting screwed regardless of who is at fault. Picking on the little guy is not consensus; I call that bullying. |
Richard A. Rosen, CSI, CCS, AIA
Senior Member
Username: rarosen
Post Number: 23
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Friday, October 19, 2007 - 11:34 am: | |
Ralph: Just a note. AIA updated documents (2007) are now available if you have an electronic documents license. I downloaded them last night and we are reviewing them now. |
Anne Whitacre, FCSI CCS
Senior Member
Username: awhitacre
Post Number: 662
Registered: 07-2002
| | Posted on Friday, October 19, 2007 - 12:42 pm: | |
considering also that at least half the projects I work on and have worked on used the Owner's documents, I would be surprised at how much inroad another set of contract documents can actually make. Contractors aren't usually in the position to determine the contract that is used with the exception of their subcontracts. |
Helaine K. Robinson CSI CCS CCCA SCIP
Senior Member
Username: hollyrob
Post Number: 347
Registered: 07-2003
| | Posted on Friday, October 19, 2007 - 01:14 pm: | |
AGC 10/12/2007 Press Release: AGC MEMBERS UNANIMOUSLY VOTE AGAINST A201 ENDORSEMENT
http://www.agc.org/galleries/pr/07-067.doc |
Helaine K. Robinson CSI CCS CCCA SCIP
Senior Member
Username: hollyrob
Post Number: 348
Registered: 07-2003
| | Posted on Friday, October 19, 2007 - 01:20 pm: | |
I'm guessing that this is the ENR article being discussed:
New Consensus Standard Contracts Should Be Exciting - ENR | McGraw-Hill Construction
Publication Date: 19-SEP-07
Author:
Price: $4.95
http://enr.ecnext.com/free-scripts/comsite2.pl?page=enr_document&article=opedar070919 |
Helaine K. Robinson CSI CCS CCCA SCIP
Senior Member
Username: hollyrob
Post Number: 349
Registered: 07-2003
| | Posted on Friday, October 19, 2007 - 01:24 pm: | |
Here is one letter:
http://www.enr.construction.com/opinions/lettersUpdates/archives/071010.asp
No Consensus
Speaking on behalf of the 700,000 design professionals in the U.S. collectively represented by the National Society of Professional Engineers, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Council of Engineering Companies and the American Institute of Architects, we would like to express concern about the cover story, "New Standard Forms Seek Unity on Fairness". The article misrepresents to the design and construction industry the participation of design professionals in ConsensusDOCS.
For the record, the Engineers Joint Contract Documents Committee (EJCDC) has not endorsed ConsensusDOCS and has not joined ConsensusDOCS; EJCDC's involvement with ConsensusDOCS has not been "pretty significant." To our knowledge, no organization in the design professional community has provided comments on or contributed intellectual property to ConsensusDOCS.
LAWRENCE A. JACOBSON
Executive Director,
National Society of Professional Engineers
CHRISTINE MCENTEE
Executive Vice President and CEO,
American Institute of Architects
PATRICK J. NATALE
Executive Director,
American Society of Civil Engineers
DAVID A. RAYMOND
President and CEO,
American Council of Engineering Companies |
Helaine K. Robinson CSI CCS CCCA SCIP
Senior Member
Username: hollyrob
Post Number: 350
Registered: 07-2003
| | Posted on Friday, October 19, 2007 - 01:27 pm: | |
OK, here's the article in question:
http://enr.ecnext.com/free-scripts/comsite2.pl?page=enr_document&article=nefiar070919a-1
This content is available for purchase and free of charge for ENR subscribers
New Standard Forms Seek Unity on Fairness - ENR | McGraw-Hill Construction
Publication Date: 19-SEP-07
Author: Richard Korman
Price: $4.95
Description
The cooperatively produced standard-form contracts written mainly by owners and contractors under the ConsensusDOCS banner contain new payment security for subcontractors among other terms. With all of the 70-plus forms due to be released Sept. 28, the effort represents three years of work by 23 industry associations and an attempt to speed up contract ... |
Ronald L. Geren, AIA, CSI, CCS, CCCA, SCIP
Senior Member
Username: specman
Post Number: 552
Registered: 03-2003
| | Posted on Friday, October 19, 2007 - 02:04 pm: | |
If you recall, the Construction Owners Association of America (COAA) tried to push their version of a "fair" document several years ago. From what I recall, its impact was a bit short of negligible.
Now, they've aligned with the AGC in the ConsensusDOCS. I figure, since they couldn't be successful alone, they had to partner with another organization that has a little more influence and an equal dislike of AIA documents. |
Bob Woodburn
Senior Member
Username: bwoodburn
Post Number: 214
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Friday, October 19, 2007 - 02:27 pm: | |
If I recall correctly, a few years ago an association of state attorneys general tried to promulgate their own set of "standard" construction contract forms, an effort viewed by some as tilting the table in the Owner's favor, to the detriment of design professionals. I don't recall how it affected contractors. Did anything ever come of that? |
Marc C Chavez
Senior Member
Username: mchavez
Post Number: 292
Registered: 07-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - 04:45 pm: | |
Did you all see this in the CSI news brief?
"ConsensusDOCS 750 detailed"
The article does some good comparison and begins by showing the consensus doc is essentially an earlier AGC subcontractor.doc with a better PR firm. Kind’ a like my wife calls squirrels rats with a good agent.
http://www.professionalroofing.net/article.aspx?A_ID=1263 |
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