Archive for November 17th, 2008
Q&A: NAW’s Jade West
Monday, November 17th, 2008
For business executives, a new administration could bring a new laundry list of concerns to present. But Jade West, National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors senior vice president of government relations, found instead that executives and business owners will press lingering issues first to Congress:
- Possible implementation of the Employment Free Choice Act: Union workers would be allowed to ask company employees to publicly sign a card stating their support of unionizing. Advocates argue that the act – also known as the card check bill – will make organizing unions easier, while opposition emphasizes its potential to eliminate the secret ballot.
- Expansion of the Family Medical Leave Act: Businesses with 50 or more employees must grant to each up to 12 workweeks of unpaid leave a year, for the care of newborns, adopted children, or immediate family members. President-elect Barack Obama wants to expand regulations by applying the act to all businesses with 25 or more employees. Opposition argues that this expansion, along with other proposed regulations, would simply cost small businesses too much.
- Potential elimination of “last-in, first-out”: With “last-in, first-out” accounting, companies subtract the cost of the latest addition to their inventory from the cost of the last item sold – ultimately, raising their costs while lowering their taxable income. Both Obama and the association support its use, while the House Ways and Means Committee proposed repealing the practice in October 2007.
West talked with goWholesale about what rose to discussion last week in Chicago, as she interpreted the presidential election results to the association’s Billion Dollar Company Roundtables. Edited responses follow.
gW: In your opinion, what is Congress going to address first?
JW: I think the president-elect is gonna have to deal with the fiscal crisis first. Congress is going to inspire talking about spending by way of stimulus bills, and is going to have to clear with the Detroit bailout probably as early as this week in the lame duck session.
Past the immediate need to deal with those issues – the fiscal crunch and the credit crunch – I would not be surprised to see organized labor push aggressively for the Employment Free Choice Act bill. There is a different environment for this bill this year than in 2007. Organized labor is committed to getting it done, while the public opinion is against it, 80-20. It is going to be a challenging issue for Democrats and the Obama administration, but organized labor and labor unions want it to be the first thing on the agenda.
gW: Was there any issue the roundtable brought up that surprised you?
JW: There weren’t any real surprises. Executives were all concerned with the labor issues: both the card check issue and the Family Medical Leave Act, health care reform, the Fair Labor Standards Act. Those interests of the members and executives did not surprise me at all. Such workplace mandates would impose financial burdens on companies already dealing with a slowing economy.
gW: What advice did you give to the roundtable to prepare for what you think Congress is going to do?
JW: On the political side, what we request – to [executives], from us – is to stay engaged and stay prepared. Every member of Congress receiving responses from voters is trying to vote in a way that they believe in the best interest of the country. Organized labor is certainly out there doing big lobbying for these bills.
Let them know how they’ll be impacted by the bills, because only the businesses can tell. Nobody can tell the story better than the guy actually running the business asking, “How can you do this to me? If you raise taxes, impose these mandates, require that I increase medical leave … it will cost me money. And for every dollar that I have to spend accommodating to government mandates or regulation, is money that I can’t spend on expansion, on hiring, on reinvestment.”
There exists a finite number of dollars – whether a business is big or small – that if spent other than for best interest of the company and employees, is money not well spent. …
The profit margin of wholesale-distribution is so small – they’re not taking 10 to 15 percent profit even in a good year. So if you start eroding a 1 to 2 percent margin in which most work, you can affect not just bottom-line margins but profitability across the board.
gW: What are the next big issues NAW will address?
JW: The card check and LIFO – “last in, first out.” Those two are issues that the industry is hugely concerned about, with LIFO on tax side, and the card check and its effects on everyone at the workplace.
Tags: billion dollar company roundtable, christina lee, events, Jade West, National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors
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