Toward a PnP Code of Ethics and Best Practices

[some seeing eye]

I realize I am throwing red meat to wolves = bacon to burners. But I hope some serious useful ideas might come from this. If not, whatever.

After some discussion, the BMORG could engage the PnPs in a discussion that would result in rules which would be mandatory in placement, early entry and directed sales for 2015 and beyond and binding on regionals.

Sure the burner brain trust on ePlaya can add specific best practices, ethics, banning criteria to some ideas below.

1. Best practices:

Max camp size, working (not consulting) staff to camper ratio, individual and group transportation, street frontage, costuming, moop, camper debriefing, photography/media/social media, ...

2. Code of ethics:

Camper solicitation advertising, camper orientation, staff pay and benefits, compliance with law, conflict resolution, photography/media/social media, dismissing employees mid event, ...

3. Banned and your people banned if you:

?



To start, camp staff.

Sherpas in Nepal are paid better than sherpas at Burningman. Proving once again that the US is becoming a Third World country. Many businesses in the US reduce their labor costs by exploiting the sub-economy. Perhaps the camp manager thought that was normal?

The median income ratio between the US and Nepal is about 49x. Higher multiplier for California median income.

You can do the math, but paying BM sherpas at Nepal Sherpas rates ($500/week) corrected by the median income ratio between the US and Nepal would raise the pay of BM sherpas significantly!

The work should be paid like consulting or film crew work with extreme condition multipliers due to experience, safety, dust and the lack of medical coverage. (Maybe employer medical+evac coverage should be mandatory for sherpas?)

The ratio of BM Sherpas to camper should be raised from less than .5 to 2 with adequate time off, flexible scheduling and a 10 hour shift per day. A PnP with 240 sherpas and 120 paid campers would take on an entirely different dynamic if the sherpas were experienced costumey burners. The philosophy should shift from in-camp servants to out of camp exploration-experience partners.

Let's say we pay sherpas $4000 a week for 7x10 hours. Add say $1000 for medical, taxes, BLM, etc. per sherpa. That would raise the labor cost of the cited PnP by about $8000 per camper. That would still be 1/6 the rate paid to Sherpas in Nepal, (did we say that the US is becoming a Third World country?)

[maladroit]

I'm dissatisfied with this whole approach. I want fewer paid employees at Burning Man, not more.

It's probably in BMORG's best interest to shut PnPs with employees down entirely, because if there is oversight of labor conditions for employees on the playa, it won't just be for PnP camps.

[theCryptofishist]

I think employees should be protected. (Even volunteers.) Is it feasible to have a cap? 60 hours a week? (Reasoning there is, 40 isn't enough and it's more than a 5 day week out there, although I don't even know how to begin to account for build and tear down.)

Of course, you can't really say: No egomaniac entrepreneurs trying to buck the playa by obsessing on flush toilets. (Although, there are those rentable toilets in trailers. Probably not over the top enough.) The thing about those sorts of things is that they are not predictable. I do think it would do some good for those high-powered and pampered people who are presumably paying all that to have some acquaintance with the reality that all systems break down over time and to think otherwise is pure hubris.

Can we ban hubris?

And really, isn't the fight against the playa one of the cruxes of burning man?

[GreyCoyote]

SSE: I'm not sure how much traction this would ultimately get, but your juxtapositioning of the US and Nepalese labor is a real eye-opener. That part, served up cold on the BMORG, can't help but get some attention. It sorta rocked me back on my heels. GOOD STUFF!

I'm with Maladroit to a large degree, but I am also eager to see where this dialogue leads. Your framing it this way was an excellent start, and anything that gets the BMORG to sit-down and deal with this problem is an improvement.

[Simon of the Playa]

keeping it old school...

[Wrath]

Can we ban hubris?

Wasn't hubris a misdemeanor in antiquity?

[Elderberry]

Yup. Good idea IMHO.

[Popeye]

Sure the burner brain trust on ePlaya can add specific best practices, ethics, banning criteria to some ideas below.

An employee, Board Member, etc. can not gain monetarily or have an interest in any PNP camp. Fire them if they do.
Allowing this almost guarantees a bias (even slight) towards growth and placement of these camps.
I wonder, without the reported interest/personal gain of a board member if this discussion would be even taking place? Talk about an unethical arrangement.

[theCryptofishist]

Sure the burner brain trust on ePlaya can add specific best practices, ethics, banning criteria to some ideas below.

An employee, Board Member, etc. can not gain monetarily or have an interest in any PNP camp. Fire them if they do.
Allowing this almost guarantees a bias (even slight) towards growth and placement of these camps.
I wonder, without the reported interest/personal gain of a board member if this discussion would be even taking place? Talk about an unethical arrangement.

Definite conflict of interest...

[some seeing eye]

Paid guests participate in a 1 hour de-MOOPing shift, in camp and around BM in a high MOOP zone.

[unjonharley]

The OP is calling for a dictatorship??

[Popeye]

I don't think SSE is calling for anything except your opinion on what, if any, new rules should be imposed. It is a dictatorship though, the Borg can take as much notice of us as they like until Burning Man stops supplying the money they need to operate. I would hope they pay attention to their long time stake holders and do something about this.

I see it as a problem having to do with new board members and their ethics, which seem to be more in line with a marketing company (manipulate people for profit) than the ethics of the average burner.
Most boards have a code of ethics which members can be held to. I wonder if the Borg does?

[sparkleBrony]

We've been talking about this over at the Burning Man Reddit:

One suggestion was to enforce Nevada labor law to protect the workers.

I thought it would be cool to have a labor inspector make sure that the labor laws were being followed, similar to how the health inspectors check large kitchens and require food permits.

[unjonharley]

We've been talking about this over at the Burning Man Reddit:

One suggestion was to enforce Nevada labor law to protect the workers.

I thought it would be cool to have a labor inspector make sure that the labor laws were being followed, similar to how the health inspectors check large kitchens and require food permits.

There has been one second or third hand report that one laborer quit in the week.. That he was told to go find his own food and water...

We have enough law enforcement at BRC.. We have enough rules in BRC.. Don't be bringing shit down on me.. I let the law and rules alone and burn very well, thank you.. Leave sleeping dogs (rule and law makers) lie..

[unjonharley]

We've been talking about this over at the Burning Man Reddit:

One suggestion was to enforce Nevada labor law to protect the workers.

I thought it would be cool to have a labor inspector make sure that the labor laws were being followed, similar to how the health inspectors check large kitchens and require food permits.

There has been one second or third hand report that one laborer quit in the week.. That he was told to go find his own food and water...

We have enough law enforcement at BRC.. We have enough rules in BRC.. Don't be bringing shit down on me.. I let the law and rules alone and burn very well, thank you.. Leave sleeping dogs (rule and law makers) lie..

[DrYes]

I think there's only really one major standard that's enforceable at BM by the BMORG and that is that placed camps have to give something back. It's independently verifiable (a placer can simply come check to see if you're doing what you said you would be doing as far as giving back).

Everything else is pretty easy to skate around, barring turning BMORG into a little government whose tendrils reach into every placed camp to make sure that they are "doing things the Burning Man way." Yuck.

No point in wasting time and energy on unenforceable regulations. Better to go at it from a cultural pressure angle I think.

[some seeing eye]

Preplaya camper video conferences or in person meetups of the campers.

Au contraire. I am simply proposing a written set of continuously evolving guidelines for the camps, primarily written by the camps as a group. There is no need to enforce them, but it is to the advantage of the BMORG that these camps don't draw adverse publicity and irritate other campers.

The BMORG has vendor permits, placement, early entry, directed sales and MV licensing as tools. The other elephant is the BLM receipts tax. I think the BMORG has more to lose on labor law.

And personally, I am not in favor of harassing the PnP campers.

[Zhust]

I think the first step—if we're going to talk plug-and-play camps is to try and define "plug-and-play" at Burning Man. As best I can tell, it's a moving target and subjectively defined. The first person to show up in a Bruise'Merica RV was probably "too plug-and-play". The first group to pool resources and bring a 320 US gal. water cube was probably "too plug and play". As people figure out how to manage surviving in the Black Rock Desert for a week, they go to more extravagant lengths for their own comfort. Paying someone else to manage all the logistics is the next step. How is it different from a camp that takes dues and provides all—or some of—your needs?

It reminds me of nationalist health-care discussions knock-down drag-out fights in the U.S. One of the points that comes up is, "what behaviors are too risky/self-abusive to warrant public health care?" The less-gray argument concerns daredevils and the like: why should the public have to pay if you crash your motorcycle trying to jump a shark? But the more-gray argument boils down to this: "I should be covered, but people who act a lot riskier than I do should not". For non-smokers, smokers should be excluded. For 2-drink-a-week people, barflies should be excluded.

This is what I see with the PnP discussion: "I Burn correctly, but people who buy more conveniences than I do are plug-and-play."

I get it—really I do. My second year I succeeded in being completely self-sufficient and brought an art project. So in my mind that year, people who just showed up or had someone set up a kitchen weren't as Burny as I was. But in 2013, I came by the ToFlame bus and barely even brought food since I camped with a group with plenty of water, food, and even gray-water handling (via containers and the shitsucker trucks). So in 2013, the target had moved and people who hired a crew with a barricade of RVs weren't as Burny as I was.

On the lighter side, I think it was 2010 when I saw a camp set up with a tent, a couple water bottles, a cheap bike with a toy pony lashed onto it, and nobody around. Spraypainted on the side of the tent was "Discount Plug-and-Play Camp".

[5280MeV]

This is what I see with the PnP discussion: "I Burn correctly, but people who buy more conveniences than I do are plug-and-play."

I agree, and think that everyone should simply stop talking about "plug and play", "turnkey" and all these terms that have to do with self-sufficiency, and start an actual discussion about commercial transactions, which are clearly definable.

From this vantage point, there is no need for any separate code of ethics for certain camps, rather a single code of ethics governing what commercial transactions are allowed.

Currently, the principle of the event states that we seek to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial transactions. There are pragmatic and accepted exceptions to this - most importantly the servicing of the port-a-johns. The person who comes to clean the port-a-john is fulfilling their side of a contracted commercial transaction. They are not coming to the event to see all the beautiful people with their smiling faces. They are driving into the desert to cart away their feces and clean up the mess of their bathrooms. They are doing this in order to get paid so that they can eat and pay their bills. It is a commercial transaction, and everyone benefits from it.

The port-a-john servicer doesn't have a large role in the social environment. They don't stick around, and they don't really have the time or the need to spend any time interacting. The important question is where to draw the line? How much commercial activity and what sort of commercial activity is necessary and/or pragmatic, given that according to principle we seek to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial transactions.

As I understand it, if you want to run a business on the playa, you need a BLM permit, and according to Burning Man's (alleged) sort of wishy-washy policy about "commercial transactions", basically any commercial activity is perfectly fine so long as you are not openly advertising or soliciting, and all payments are handled before or after the event.

The United States and the State of Nevada already have lots of labor laws for employees of a business, although we can all argue endlessly about the level of the minimum wage, lack of maternity leave, etc, etc...

I think it is unfair to judge all businesses (at Burning Man or anywhere else) based on the allegations of how a single commercial camp treated its employees. (Note: here a commercial camp is one that is specifically for-hire with the hope or expectation of a net profit)

The real solutions would be to either:

(a) Decide what exceptions to no commercial transactions are acceptable due to either pragmatic need or low impact to the social environment, in a manner which is consistent with a principle of creating social environments which are (largely) free from commercial transactions.

(b) Revise or remove the "decommodification" principle to reflect the actual policy and evolving culture. The new principle might state that we seek to create environments where commercial advertisement and solicitation is not permitted, and commercial transactions are to be handled discretely, with the financial aspect of the transaction handled outside the event proper.

[unjonharley]

I bring everything needed for the weeks stay in the desert.. Then haul whats left off the desert at weeks end.. Can this have a brand new shinny label...

Everythings the same.... Everythings changed.. The only real constant is change..

[Lonesomebri]

I don't think there should be any rules or standards because I live in fantasy land. Lowly people like us even considering the behavior of powerful people is simply not the way I do things. They started this with their obscene behavior, can't we just let them finish it, finish it all? Sure there are rules on food handling, speed limits, pressure put on people to lite themselves at night, laws on fireworks, etc etc etc etc, but that isn't inconveniencing rich folk, which is the real sacred cow here. The voice of reason has spoken. Keep defending the indefensible, someday you might even be allowed one of their ice-pops. What I don't understand is why these commercial enterprises hire anyone, what with the volunteer staff of apologist on hand 24/7. Carry on.

[Sham]

I think the experiment might be over. George Orwell was right in his book, Animal Farm.
We are all equal, but some are more equal than others.

[maladroit]

It's been happening for at least a decade: http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/burningman.html

[Lonesomebri]

Good luck getting a code of conduct in place for Plug and Plays, as they did with the drones.
http://burners.me/2014/09/16/burning-ma ... ety-rules/

[Just_Joe]

Good luck getting a code of conduct in place for Plug and Plays, as they did with the drones.
http://burners.me/2014/09/16/burning-ma ... ety-rules/

As a drone operator I was highly pissed when that video came out and left a comment (which has been deleted) to that effect, and suggested "Fest300" shouldn't return next year.
I was one of the 200 who registered several weeks in advance of the event.
I slogged my ass out to the airport (twice) in order to attend an hour long briefing, get my gear stickered, and my picture taken. I agreed to abide by Burning Man's "rules", which the Fest300 video violates umpteen times.
It's pretty disheartening to see that the video is tied to a Burning Man board member.

[TomServo]

Why are y'all suger coating Plug N Plays? People pay money to have their shit taken care of....It's a pre paid commodity. I have yet to hear of a P&P encouraging it's members to explore on their own. Instead..I watched a Plug N Play try to get a disabled sticker for a school bus. It's not about accommodating the rich...rich folks have been coming for years..the hard way... It's about lazy fucks being taken advantage of by greedy assholes.

[some seeing eye]

What I am proposing is that the spa camps get their act together to avoid future bad publicity for the event that is coming from the sherpa fiasco. Either the camps can police themselves to preserve their good graces, or the org can step it to preserve its interests. I'm opposed to the harassment of camps and campers because it will lead to bodyguards, which is in no way good for the event. The fact that the org makes rules, like the sound systems, drone and MV sound system rules, and does not figure out how to enforce them immediately, does not mean they will never be enforced, or that they will not be enforced on an exception basis when reported, or that there should be no spa camp rules at the org level. The drone rule has the backing of the federal government, which does not yet actively enforce the rule yet. That is telling, so we will see what happens next.

As for the specific fest300 video, send a note to the Burningman feedback and airport emails on the main website.

[AntiM]

On the way out to the airport, across the road from walk-in camping, there is a camp which appeared to be for the pumper/water truck employees. I don't have a problem with that, just curious if it was what it appeared to be. Do some of them stay on site all week?

[theCryptofishist]

Yes, there is a JotS camp, and they stay there all week. I've been there.

[unjonharley]

Yes, there is a JotS camp, and they stay there all week. I've been there.

LMFAO

Aren't there several jots camp around BM And that damn Robb-a-Dobb is the serpa for all of 'em..