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LABOR DAY – A DAY TO HONOR YOUR BOARD MEMBERS?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published
September 5, 2014
According
to Wikipedia LABOR DAY is a “holiday
celebrated on the first Monday in September. It is a celebration
of the American labor movement and is dedicated to the social
and economic achievements of workers. It constitutes a yearly
national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the
strength, prosperity, and well-being of their country.”
That
opens the question: Should board members of community
associations celebrate Labor Day? Should they be celebrated as
LABORERS?
I
don’t think so, looking at the definition of the word: Laborer
= a person doing unskilled
manual work for wages.
Let’s
look at the words used in this definition:
Unskilled?
Sorry to say: That fits for quite a lot of the folks serving as
members of community association boards; especially the ones
with the attitude: I know it all and why should I waste my time
going to one of these seminars offered for free all over the
state?
Manual
Work? I don’t think
that fits very well since the job description of “board
member” doesn’t really include manual labor.
Wages?
Oouch! If your board members pay themselves wages (or any other
monetary benefits) they are clearly violating the
Florida
statutes. Even if the governing documents in a very few
communities allow board members to get paid for their services,
board members are generally not allowed to pay themselves or
receive any financial benefits.
With
other words: Community association board members don’t fall
under the category of people who are supposed to be honored by
the celebration of Labor Day.
But
no matter what: Never forget that the board members of your
community are as well your neighbors and deserve a holiday like
everyone else. And if these board members really do their best
to “serve” the community be thankful and treat them with
respect – respect they definitely deserve!
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Jan Bergemann is president of Cyber Citizens For Justice,
Florida
's largest state-wide property owners' advocacy group.
CCFJ works on legislation to help owners living in
community
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associations. He moved to
Florida
in 1995 - hoping to retire. He moved into a HOA, where the
developer cheated the homeowners and used the association dues
for his own purposes. End of retirement!
CCFJ was born in the year 2000, when some owners met in
Tallahassee
- finding out that power is only in numbers. Bergemann was a
member of Governor Jeb Bush's HOA Task force in 2003/2004.
The organization has two websites to inform interested
Florida
homeowners and condo owners:
News Website: http://www.ccfj.net/.
Educational Website: http://www.ccfjfoundation.net/.
We think that only owners can really represent owners, since all
service providers surely have a different interest! We are
trying to create owner-friendly laws, but the best laws are
useless without enforcement. And enforcement is totally lacking
in
Florida
!
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