US TAG 176 Leaders Move to Keep Members Secret, Even From Each Other

Oxebridge has learned that in October, the US TAG to TC 176 officially removed a list of members from an internal SharePoint site used by TAG members for development of official US positions on ISO 9001 and related standards. The move, apparently ordered by Alka Jarvis and the leadership, came after some TAG members used the email addresses listed therein to communicate their internal endorsements and concerns related to the recent leadership elections, and after the members received a single external email from Oxebridge urging them to exercise their right to vote.

The email was sent on October by ASQ administrator Jennifer Admussen, and ordered TAG members to violate their required role in by “disregarding any communication that does not come from” the TAG leadership. ANSI rules require that the TAG members consider feedback from all “constituencies” and does not allow for the TAG leadership to inhibit this access.

Hello TAG 176 Members

We apologize for the recent e-mails some of you have been receiving related to the current TAG 176 leadership election.  ASQ and TAG leaders do not support this activity.  Please disregard any communication that does not come from standards@asq.org.

We have received multiple e-mails from TAG members complaining about these e-mails.  In an attempt to prevent further misuse of the membership contact information, the roster has been removed from the TAG 176 SharePoint site.  ASQ will continue to blind copy member e-mail addresses to avoid this misuse.

TAG leadership and ASQ will follow up with next steps.

Thanks,

Jennifer Admussen
Standards Manager
ISO Secretary – TC176 SC1, TC207 SC4, TC69

The move follows an earlier, less formal one wherein TAG leaders stopped posting notes and minutes of breakout sessions, for fear of them leaking to the public. It’s not clear what would be damaging to the TAG in such notes, but this effectively cut off communication of important information to anyone no physically present during such a session, and has prompted complaints from TAG members not within the leadership.

Privately, sources indicate the TAG leadership was furious that communication from both within and without was hindering their ability to present a ballot containing only single candidates for each open chair. George Hummel of the certification body Global Certification-USA, argued against even emails between TAG members themselves; a day later, the TAG pulled all member list. Hummel subsequently attended a high-profile ASQ event alongside Alka Jarvis and Paul Palmes, himself the winner of the controversial Chair election.

The deletion of member information not only removes each member’s contact information, but even their names. As a result, TAG 176 member are now completely anonymous, even among each other, with no method for anyone other than the leadership to provide data on membership totals or, more seriously, the composition breakdown by interest sector. This latter point is critical, since the TAG has been found to be dominated by consultants and certification body representatives, contrary to ANSI and ISO rules which prohibit the dominance of any single stakeholder group.

Furthermore, there is now no way for TAG 176 members to communicate between each other, unless they physically attend all meetings, or have other members’ information already saved. This makes participation in the TAG futile, and compliance to ANSI’s Operating Procedures impossible.

A complaint filed against the TAG by Oxebridge is being amended to include the latest revelation, and Oxebridge is investigating if the move puts both ANSI and the US TAG in violation of Federal law.

Oxebridge has responded by posting the full list of TAG member names and employers, as of September, on its website.