This week found the blogger-in-chief in Florida for the NAM’s Annual Public Affairs Conference. Just our luck – spring finally breaks in Washington, it’s 80 degrees in DC and we’re in Florida. Poor us. Some great sessions on energy and trade, and a fair amount of time spent discussing best practices in the area of employee involvement.

There’s a revolution going on out there, flying under the radar of the mainstream media. Companies are informing and engaging their employees on issues of interest to the continued health of their company, and they are responding in droves. Along the way, they made a difference in some key states.

The worst news is for organized labor, as unionized companies can attest. Employees are — gulp! –getting the facts and voting their pocketbooks. This is very bad news for John Sweeney and Company. One particulary large and active unionized company noted the reaction of the employees as typified by one comment in particular, “Thank you for not telling me how to vote, but for giving me useful information on how these issues affect our business.” As we’ve said before, this is powerful stuff. Check out the Prosperity Project if you’ve not already done so.

Slides from the conference will be posted next week at http://www.nam.org/paconference.

One of the first things any budding reporter learns in Journalism 101 is to look for the conflict, find the conflict and write about the conflict. As a result, today’s print and broadcast media are conflict driven, sometimes making mountains out of comparative molehills of disagreement, or out of no disagreement at all. And so it is that those who would divide us manufacturers, those who need a story to file, write about the “great gulf” between large and small manufacturers. Some like to demonize the nameless, faceless, “multinational” companies, ignoring, of course, that virtually all small manufacturers either have foreign operations, are fierce exporters or supply a company that exports around the globe.

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There’s nothing really good about this day, as it reminds us of the tremendous tax burden on us all. In fact, we have the heaviest corporate tax burden of all our major trading partners. That’s comforting, isn’t it? All part of the 22% cost disadvantage we labor under as US manufacturers.

In any event, you couldn’t get through tax day without good ol” manufacturers. We make the calculators, the organizers, the software and the aspirin. Here’s a link to a story by Marissa Gandleman about manufacturers’ role in this otherwise unhappy day.

And, we ought not confuse this day with Tax Freedom Day. That’s something quite different. Tax Freedom Day is the day we stop working to pay our federal taxes and begin working for ourselves. This year it’s on May 31, so we still have a ways to go. Hang in there. Take two aspirin and call us on May 31.

NAM member Dick Wilkey — a small manufacturer, Fisher-Barton, from Wisconsin — testified today before the House Ways and Means Committee on trade with China.

“Competing against China’s low wages is tough enough”, said Wilkey, “but a deck stacked with unfair trade practices makes it practically impossible.”

He outlined the NAM trade agenda, calling for an end to currency manipulation, an end to illegal subsidies and an end to intellectual property abuse.

For those of you who don’t know Dick Wilkey, he’s no shrinking violet. He’s a great manufacturer, sells his product around the world, and is passionate about manufacturing.

Here’s our press release from today and here’s a link to Dick’s full testimony.

NAM President John Engler is fond of saying that two of our major areas of crisis today — health care and education — are not subject to any of the metrics that manufacturers build into their processes every day. Were they to have some basic measurements applied, he points out, their performance would no doubt dramatically improve, and their cost would most likely be lowered.

Now comes Standard and Poor’s with SchoolMatters.com. This is a service which is a project of the National Education Data Partnership and provides student performance, financial and demographic data on schools and school districts.

The developers of the site say it’s helpful for manufacturers who are looking to locate a plant and are in search of high-performing schools. Also, under the theory of “What you measure improves”, it will no doubt push under-performing schools to try to boost their results. God knows the DC Schools, for one, could use a little motivation.

We would urge you to check out their site, and to spread the word. This is a great development and a welcome one, if long overdue. Maybe this will bring some much-needed education reform. As one of the biggest end users of the educational system in this country — and the ones who do most of the recall work on site — manufacturers have a great stake in seeing that the system gets fixed and that some good old manufacturing metrics get applied at last.

In today’s Washington Post, in her weekly column, “The Regulators“, Cindy Skrzycki writes about today’s Congressional hearings on regulation at which NAM President John Engler will testify. The hearing is being held by the House Government Reform Subcommittee and its new energetic and capable chair Candice Miller (R-MI).

Apparently, Skrzycki reports the minority members will have their own witness in Sidney A. Shapiro from Wake Forest University. Incredibly, he is coming to testify that regulations are not a barrier to growth. No matter – he probably thinks the earth is flat, too, another theory long ago debunked or at least widely discredited.

However, as if to bolster his fairly unique view, Skrzycki quotes the NAM blog report on the recent board meeting, below, as evidence. That is, many manufacturers are having a great year, hence no ill effects of any regulations, QED.

Had she scrolled back just back just a bit further, she would have seen the Report from Davos where even the regulation-happy Europeans are realizing that regulation saps innovation. Had the blog begun three years ago, she would have seen that we are coming off a recession where we lost some 3 million jobs. The manufacturers who are still in business are having a good year – an important distinction.

We are in a worldwide competition for jobs and investment. Congress’ job is to help create a climate — legal and regulatory — in this country that will allow manufacturers to prosper. Rep. Miller’s hearing today is an important first step down that road.

Here’s a link to our press release on today’s hearing and here’s a link to Gov. Engler’s full testimony.

For those of you who didn’t see it there was a great op-ed in Friday’s Washington Post by NAM member Gary Heiman, President & CEO of Standard Textile Company in Cincinnati entitled “Innovation, Not Quotas”, it lays out the anti-Lou Dobbs/pro-manufacturing case. Heiman’s company has ridden out the rough waters in textiles these days by innovating, spending on R&D and finding new markets, exporting to some 49 countries. As he points out, to produce his newly – innovated products, he requires “a highly educated, or at least educable, workforce and the kinds of skill sets that….are still easier to find in the United States and other developed countries.” So much for labor costs.

Heiman’s op-ed is terrifically done and carries a message that can only be told – confidently and unabashedly — by a US manufacturer because we’re still the best in the world.

There are two websites we want to call your attention to, both featuring cool manufacturing stuff.

The first is part of our own NAM website and is more text-based, but includes some neat articles highlighting innovation in manufacturing. One, from the Wall Street Journal, talks about how Boeing and Airbus are reinventing airplane manufacturing, while another — also from the Wall St. Journal — profiles Horner Flooring of Dollar Bay, Michigan, a small manufacturer that has developed new and improved flooring for basketball courts which was used during the NCAA Tournament. Keep checking the site, as new articles will be added all the time.

The other site you need to check out is from the Alliance for Innovative Manufacturing at Stanford University, especially the section aptly named, “How Everyday Things Are Made“. As they say in their intro:

If you’ve ever wondered how things are made – products like candy, cars, airplanes, or bottles – or if you’ve been interested in manufacturing processes, like forging, casting, or injection molding, then you’ve come to the right place.

Indeed you have. All in all, they have almost 4 hours of manufacturing video, covering some 40 different products. It’s a virtual factory tour, without ever leaving the house — a must-see for the manufacturing buff/couch potatoes among us.

The storied Masters begins this week, and everywhere you will see the handiwork of American manufacturers. Starting with the dimpled sphere itself, there will be manufactured products at every turn. Titleist golf balls are made by Fortune Brands, one of our favorite companies — they make golf balls, golf clubs and whiskey — what’s not to love? There’s like one factory in Massachusetts that cranks out a few million balls a day. Almost all are laying at the bottom of a pond somewhere.

Toro handles the mowing chores and Ingersoll-Rand makes the Club Car golf carts.

So when you’re laying around on the couch watching some great golf, remember that you’re also seeing the handiwork of the best manufacturers in the world. Here’s a link to an article by our own Jason Straczewski and David Kralik entitled, “NAM Members Make the Masters Possible”.

Fore!

Following on the “Report from Florida“, below, we have some video from the NAM Board meeting. Click here to see the video of Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez — a true American success story — who was well-received and talked about the need for CAFTA and for Social Security reform. We also had the pleasure of Sen. Ben Nelson’s company, who gave us an overview of current issues. Click here to see Sen. Nelson’s remarks. All in all, a great meeting. An improving manufacturing economy sure helped the mood.