Every week, we’ll be posting a question, in the interest of stimulating some discussion among manufacturers. Since Thanksgiving is upon us, we’ll leave this one up for more than a week, to allow for feedback.

Here’s your homework:

What top three issues would you like to see Congress address in its next term, i.e., over the next two years?

Kudos to the Washington Post’s Paul Blustein for coaxing our usually media-shy NAM Board Member and SMM Kendig Kneen of Al-Jon Inc. in Ottumwa, Iowa out of his shell and featuring him in his story, “Upside of a Down Dollar” in today’s paper. The article also features NAM member Clyde Nixon of Sun Hydraulics in Sarasota, Fla. Al-jon manufactures car crushers, landfill compactors and scrap metal balers, machines that weigh up to 90,000 lbs. Sun Hydraulics makes hydraulic cartridge valves and manifolds.

Both Al-jon and Sun have seen a dramatic uptick in business overseas as a result of the dollar’s leveling off as vs. foreign currencies, in this case the Euro. Their story is typical of so many NAM members large and small.

If you are not exporting, you should be, as the iron is hot. Go to the NAM Export Portal to see how you can get in the game. You can also e-mail Brian McCleary at the NAM.

Do you know of any other blogs that bring you business….?

Sources inside and outside the AFL-CIO are abuzz with speculation that one way or another, this is John Sweeney’s last term as President. The 70 year-old labor leader has announced plans to run for re-election in July, but will either be defeated by a growing movement dissatisfied with his leadership or – in the face of overwhelming odds – will decide to return to the farm. Amy Joyce’s excellent piece in yesterday’s Washington Post outlines the growing restiveness, embodied for the moment by Service Employees’ President Andy Stern. But Stern does not want for allies in this jihad, as he is but one of the “three amigos”, along with the Ivy-league trained Bruce Raynor and John Wilhelm, all fairly aggressive organizers and progressive, outside-the-box thinkers. Raynor is President of UNITE/HERE, Wilhelm a “divisional President” of the same, recently-merged entity. In truth, since the merger, Wilhelm has a lower profile and smaller portfolio, making him the ideal candidate to ascend to the President’s slot in that he won’t have to leave the Presidency of an International Union to do so. Add Doug McCarron, President of the Carpenters’ Union to the mix, who left the AFL recently but may re-join if it hastens Sweeney’s ouster. McCarron’s addition to the troika of Stern, Wilhelm and Raynor would help the ticket pull the votes of the more conservative building trades unions, which they would need.

What’s so strange is that this is an eerie replay of the dynamics that put Sweeney in power in the first place so many years ago. The troops (most notably AFSCME President Gerry McEntee) were growing restless with the aloof, distant style of then-President Lane Kirkland, who — like Sweeney — was coming off a run of stinging political defeats. When approached with the fact that he would have opposition, Kirkland stubbornly refused to step down, only deciding at the last minute to do so, leaving his loyal lieutenant — and Sweeney friend and mentor — Tom Donahue as his heir apparent. Sweeney jumped on his old friend’s bandwagon, then quickly abandoned it in the face of McEntee’s promise to make him king. He ran against his old friend in a bitterly contested race and won.

It is deja vu all over again. Sweeney is insisting — at least publicly — that he will run for election, in the face of growing long odds. Confronted by the troops, he may decide to step down, leaving Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka to carry the torch. By then, as last time, the insurgents will be well-organized and focused, and will easily coast to victory. As is clear from Joyce’s article of yesterday, the AFL-CIO is already working on an agenda set by Stern, not by Sweeney. It is only a matter of time before Sweeney’s marble Taj Mahal on 16th St. becomes his mausoleum.

As Thanksgiving nears, we should all take a moment to reflect on all that we have to be thankful for — from living in the greatest Nation on earth to the love of family and friends. However, we hope this Thanksgiving you also take a moment to give thanks for the great contribution of Americans’ manufacturers, from the parade balloons at the Macy’s Day parade in New York City to the turkey and the pumpkin pie. Find out more about manufacturers and our role in making this Thanksgiving another one to remember.

Hope you have a good Holiday.

Mary Andringa is CEO of Vermeer Manufacturing, a small and medium manufacturer (SMM) in Pella, Iowa and a member of the NAM Board of Directors. She is also very active in the Prosperity Project (P2), getting her employees informed, registered and to the polls in a state that saw a very close Presidential race. For her efforts, she was profiled in a front page LA Times story by Tom Hamburger, one of the first reporters to break the story of business invovlement many years ago.

However, more important is what happened last week. With the election at last behind us, Mary sent the following e-mail out to her employees, reminding them that the real work has just begun. She urged them to continue to return to the company P2 site to weigh in on issues and to keep tabs on how their elected officials are voting on issues of importance to manufacturers. If you haven’t already done so, you might want to take a page — literally — out of Mary’s book and send a similar memo to your employees:

Click Here for a copy of Mary’s excellent memo.

As mentioned below, this coming year will be a very busy one for trade, with Congressional votes expected on issues like trade promotion authority (TPA)and continued US membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). As is often the case, the facts will be lost early on in the haze of the battle. Check out this link to the NAM Trade Facts. You will almost always learn something new, like the fact that some 97% of all exporters are small and medium manufacturers, or that 80% of our trade deficit is with countries with which we have no trade agreement. We’ll be regularly posting more of these, and sending them to Capitol Hill as well.

Thanks to Bob Cusack, Albert Eisele and Jeff Dufour of The Hill — Pulitzer contenders all — for their mention of our humble blog yesterday, citing the Sweeney article, below. Surprise, surprise, sources at the AFL-CIO denied he’s leaving. Not to worry, former AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland’s aides did the same not too many years ago.

In the run-up to the election, much was said and written about the NAM Vote Ratings. Firmly rooted in — and driven by — our members, it is really the only accurate litmus to clearly delineate manufacturing friends from manufacturing foes.

In three crucial Senate races, thanks to the involvement of manufacturers and their employees, we made up a few hundred points of NAM voting record:

South Dakota:
Tom Daschle 22%
John Thune 95%

South Carolina:
Fritz Hollings 10%
Jim DeMint 88%

North Carolina:
John Edwards 8%
Richard Burr 95%

This equals — if my math is right, always a dicey proposition — a net change of +238 points in the NAM Vote Rating in just these three Senate races.

This doesn’t mean we can rest, of course. It’s only to say “attaboy” (and “attagirl”, I suppose) to all those manufacturers who stepped up to the plate, who gave their employees the information they needed to make an informed choice at the polls about who is a friend of manufacturing and who is not.

Martha Boudreau, Robin Carle and the folks at Fleishman-Hillard put together a dinner last night for a few health care-minded folks and former Speaker Newt Gingrich. Newt is the reason the GOP took control of the Congress in l994, it’s just that simple. Though the “Contract with America” has been reviled by the revisionists in the time since, the truth is that it drew a bright line between what his side was “for” and what the other side was “for” and people made their choices — in droves — for his side. He is a big thinker, a very bright guy, and just fun and thought-provoking. He was no different last night.

Newt has turned his focus to health care and has started the Center for Health Transformation. He is a zealot on health savings accounts (HSA’s) and can cite chapter and verse the companies that have reduced their costs dramatically as a result of their move to HSA’s. The NAM was behind the push for HSA’s and many manufacturers have embraced them, with more undoubtedly to come. Here is a copy of the slides he handed out: Newt’s Slides.

Also on his website is a host of information and thoughts about “Designing a 21st Century Health and Health Care System”. Newt is a firm believer in the power of the market and wants to turn the market loose on health care, including a fuller and freer information flow for consumers. He will be the keynote speaker at a conference we are co-sponsoring on consumer directed health care here in Washington, Nov. 28- December 1. Click here to register.

All in all, an interesting night.

Just wanted to take a moment to observe Veteran’s Day. Those of you who live in Washington DC should make it a point to go to The Wall today. Those of you who have never been there are missing something very powerful, very special. I had the privilege of being here in l981 on Veteran’s Day when it was dedicated. At The Wall that day were hundreds of strangers, many in camouflage, hugging each other and crying, releasing long pent-up emotion from a war that never went away, that was never resolved in the Nation’s consciousness. What always strikes me about The Wall is that no matter how big the crowd is, it is always silent there, like a church. It is no less a holy place than any church I know.

I grew up in one of those blue collar towns, Butler, NJ, that supplied manpower for that war. Joey Mathews’ name is on that wall, he lived up the street from me, and never made it home.

If you see a Vietnam vet, don’t forget to tell them the words they never heard when they came home three decades ago, “Welcome home.”

Remember all our Veterans on this, their special day. We enjoy freedom the other 364 days because of what they gave for us. God bless them all.