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Would the Trans Pacific Partnership really be Free Trade?

Tuesday, May 5th, 2015

Free trade ? what does this mean? Businesdictionary.com defines it as “The interchange of goods and services (but not of capital or labor) unhindered by high tariffs, nontariff barriers (such as quotas), and onerous or unilateral requirements or processes.” By this definition, would the Trans Pacific Partnership really be free trade?

Last week, Congressman Tom McClintock (R-CA) gave a speech in support of passing the Trade Promotion Authority aka “Fast Track Authority” saying, “Every nation that engages in trade prospers from it. Every nation that fails to trade, fails to prosper…It is freedom that produces prosperity – the free exchange of goods between people and between nations for their mutual betterment. The greater the freedom, the greater the prosperity.”

This is only true if the nation benefits from the trade by exporting more than it imports. In 2014, the U. S. imported $2.34 trillion in goods compared to exporting $1.62 trillion in goods, resulting in a trade deficit of $721.6 billion. Because we have a surplus in exports of services, our total trade deficit was reduced to $505 billion. It seems to me that we are not benefitting from our current trade agreements as we should and that another trade agreement with 11 more countries would only make our trade deficit much worse.

Rep. McClintock argued that “…since the 1930’s, Congress has chosen to exercise its responsibility by establishing the broad terms of the agreement it seeks and then giving explicit instructions to our negotiators at the beginning of the process. IF, and only IF, these objectives are advanced in the agreement, Congress will then consider it as a whole package and either approve it or reject it.

McClintock said, “That process is now called ‘Trade Promotion Authority. It has stood the test of time, has been used to the great benefit of our nation in the past and has never been controversial until now… It is precisely because of this mistrust that the Trade Promotion Authority sets forth some 150 objectives that must be advanced before Congress will even consider the resulting agreement. And once those objectives are attained, a majority of the Congress must still approve it.”

What is wrong with this argument is that the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement has been in negotiation for five years without any involvement by Congress; it is not at the beginning of the process. Rep. McClintock seems to mistakenly believe Congress retains the power to direct the President’s negotiations when in fact there is only one more round of negotiations scheduled.

Rep. McClintock wrongly asserts that Congress set forth 150 negotiating objectives in the TPA that the President “must” comply with. This statement is not true. None of the objectives are binding and most are simply vague aspirations of global goals. Indeed, the House Ways and Means Committee firmly rejected any efforts to make the negotiating objectives binding.

The President also is empowered to unilaterally draft “implementing legislation” that will change U.S. laws and regulations to comply with the agreement he negotiated. Through the TPA, Congress even limits its own ability to debate and prevents its ability to amend the implementing legislation.

The Obama Administration made the draft text of the agreement classified and has kept it hidden from public view, making it illegal for the press, experts, advocates, or the general public to review the text of this agreement. Even Congressional members can only view it at the office of the U. S. Trade Representative without pen, pencil, paper or a camera to take picture of any pages. They are also prohibited by law from discussing the specifics of the text in public.

This is why on April 25^th Senators Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren wrote President Obama a letter stating, “We write to request that you promptly declassify the latest bracketed negotiating text of the TPP and release it publicly before asking Congress to vote on “fast track” authority to facilitate the TPP’s ratification.”

They add, “Because the negotiations are largely complete, there is no reason the TPP must remain secret from the American people before Congress votes on fast track authority. In 2001, President George W. Bush made public a draft of the scrubbed bracketed text of the Free Trade Area of the Americans (“FTAA”) agreement several months before Congress granted partial fast track authority to facilitate ratification of that deal.”

They conclude, “We have an additional concern: the fast track legislation currently under consideration goes far beyond the TPP. Fast track, as currently written, would preclude Congress from amending or filibustering any trade agreement submitted to this Congress or any future Congress—potentially through 2021.”

Their concerns are shared by Congressman Dan Lipinski (D-IL) who has introduced “the Truth, Transparency, Accountability, and Fairness in Trade Act to protect American workers being harmed by foreign trade agreements.” His bill would require “the Executive Branch to review and report on the operation of existing trade agreements to determine whether American jobs and exports are being negatively impacted. If negative impact is found, any Member of Congress would have the right to submit a “termination bill,” which would have expedited consideration and allow for the cancellation of some or all of the trade agreement causing damage. After passage of a termination bill, any renegotiated agreement would be barred from being considered under Trade Promotion Authority (the fast-track process).”

It is not just Democrats that are opposed to the Trade Promotion Authority bill. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) expressed his concerns about the Trade Promotion authority in an interview on the John Fredericks Radio Show on Thursday, 4/23. (WHKT, AM 1650, and a Network of AM Stations across Virginia.) He subsequently released a critical alert of his Top Five Concerns with Trade Promotion Authority.

“Conservatives like Reps. Walter Jones and Duncan Hunter have said they oppose the measure, wary of giving the White House any more authority. At the end of last year, 19 House Republicans signed a letter calling on their colleagues not to pass TPA in the lame-duck session.”

At www.obamatrade.com, you can listen to videos of several conservatives urging Republican Congressional Representatives to oppose the Trade Promotion Authority, including TV host Lou Dobbs, Frank Gaffney, President of Center for Security Policy, former UN Ambassador Alan Keyes, Niger Innis, Executive Director of TheTeaParty.net, Richard Manning, President of Americans for Limited Government, and Sandy Rios of American Family Association. The American Family Association is part of a broad coalition of conservative organizations urging Congress to reject granting President Obama so-called “fast track” power. Author, talk show host, and defender of the Constitution Mark Levin says no conservative should support Fast Track “Trade Promotion Authority.”

Michael Stumo, CEO of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, stated, “The minority staff of the House Ways and Means released a side by side comparison of this week’s Fast Track bill with the bill from January 2014. Basically it is more of the same. Will they never learn? From CPA’s perspective, the new bill is a failure.”

The new bill does not have any enforceable provision to address foreign currency manipulation. It does not address the foreign border adjustable taxes (VATs), which are tariffs by another name. It has insufficient language to address the problem of government subsidies to state owned enterprises. It allows the Investor State Dispute Resolution to be handled by the foreign tribunals without providing a rationale as to why the U. S. court systems are not good enough.

For these reasons and other reasons mentioned in my previous article, “What would be the Impact of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement,” this Agreement is the opposite of free trade. It is government controlled trade and is so overreaching on non-trade issues that it would control many aspects of the lives of all Americans, not just businesses.

The Trade Promotion bill passed the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee on April 22^nd and 23^rd. It could be brought up for a vote in the full House and Senate any time after Congress gets back from this week’s recess. Time is of the essence! Don’t give up your freedom! Tell your representatives in Congress to vote NO on Fast Track.

Posted in Jobs, Trade, Trade Policy | No Comments »

Looking Back at 2014 and Ahead to 2015

Tuesday, January 20th, 2015

Most economists are predicting a rosy forecast of more than 3 percent expansion for the U.S. economy in 2015, up from 2.3% in 2014. If it does, this “would mark the first time in a decade that growth has reached that level for a full calendar year.” The unemployment rate is also predicted to drop from the current 5.6 percent to 5.3 percent. The questions are: How much will American manufacturing benefit from this expansion and how many manufacturing jobs will be created?

While the country gained 252,000 jobs in December, only 17,000 were manufacturing jobs according the monthly report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics ? “In December, …Manufacturing added an average of 16,000 jobs per month in 2014, compared with an average gain of 7,000 jobs per month in 2013.”

This was a significant increase over the previous year, but notice that President Obama recently stated that “more than 764,000 manufacturing jobs have been gained since the end of the recession.” This means that we still have a long way to go to recoup the 5.8 million manufacturing jobs that we lost between the years 2000 – 2009. According to Scott Paul, President of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, “…December’s manufacturing job gains were behind the previous month, and that halfway through the president’s second term, the country is just over one-quarter of the way to his pledge to create 1 million new manufacturing jobs in that four-year span.”

While the U3 unemployment rate dropped to 5.6 percent, the U6 rate is double at11.2 percent. The U-6 rate includes “Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force.”

In a recent article, business reporter Jonathan Horn of the San Diego Union-Tribune noted, “the unemployment rate fell in part because people dropped out of the labor force ? they either retired or left the labor force. Last month, the number of unemployed persons fell 383,000 to 8.7 million. However, less than one-third of people out of work found jobs; the rest stopped looking. The percentage of Americans who are either working or looking for work fell back to a 37-year low last touched in September.”

The January 6-11, 2015 edition of the San Diego Business Journal’s reported that manufacturing jobs in San Diego increased by 3.3 percent from November 2013 through November 2014, for a total of 97,400 industry jobs, up by 3,100 jobs. However, we still have a long way to go to get back to the 122,600 manufacturing jobs in the San Diego region we had at the end of 1999.

Two manufacturing sectors led the job growth in San Diego: shipbuilding and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones.) General Dynamics’ Nassco division has contracts for five commercial tankers and one Navy ship and plans to “add about 300 additional jobs to the shipbuilder’s staff, bringing the total workforce to about 3,500.” General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc’s “local employment grew 9 percent year over year to 4,843 as of June 2014.”

In this same article, I was quoted as saying, “For those with skills and experience in a particular industry, things were definitely trending up in 2014…This (2014) has been a year when people could find jobs.” I’m also quoted as saying, “San Diego greatly diversified its economy following the previous major recession in the early 1990s, and that’s made a huge difference in the past several years…One of our strengths is that we’re not hurt as much from the lack of new defense programs.”

Looking Back at 2014

The R&D tax credit that had expired December 31, 2013 was extended for 2014, but has now expired again as of December 31, 2014. The R&D Tax Credit was originally introduced in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 sponsored by Rep. Jack Kemp and Senator William Roth. The credit has expired eight times and has been extended fifteen times. The frequent expiration of this tax credit creates unnecessary uncertainty for business investment planning. The R&D Credit Coalition, National Association of Manufacturers, and many other business groups recommend that this tax credit be made permanent.

One bright spot on the national scene is that a bill requiring a National Strategic Plan for Manufacturing authored by Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-IL) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) became law right before Christmas. Three of Lipinski’s previously authored bills had passed the House three times over the past five years, but failed to either pass or be considered in the Senate. This bill was included in legislation that passed both houses and was signed into law by the President. U.S. Senators Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Chris Coons (D-DE) and Mark Pryor (D-AK) introduced the language in the Commerce, Science and Justice Appropriations bill passed by the Senate.

Rep. Lipinski stated, “After many years of hard work, my bipartisan legislation to boost domestic manufacturing and American jobs by. The bill requires that at least every four years the president works with public and private stakeholders to produce and publish a plan to promote American manufacturing. In addition, every year the president’s budget blueprint will have to contain an explanation of how it promotes the most recent manufacturing strategy. This bill guarantees that Washington has to pay attention to what can be done to help manufacturers and workers. Getting this provision into law can really make a difference by leading to economic growth, increased American security, and more middle class jobs that pay hard-working Americans a good wage. I look forward to finding many more “Made in USA” labels on products we see in our stores and online.”

In June 2013, I wrote an article criticizing an earlier version of this bill, H.R. 2447, the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act of 2013, and was contacted by Rep. Lipinski’s Chief of Staff to discuss my criticisms. I am anxious to see whether or not the current language included in the Commerce, Science and Justice Appropriations bill addressed these criticisms.

In his 2014 State of the Union address, President Obama pledged to launch four new manufacturing institutes this year, for a total of eight institutes launched so far on an original goal of creating 15 manufacturing innovation institutes. On December 11^th, President Obama announced that” the government will invest more than $290 million in public-private investment for two new Manufacturing Innovation Hub Competitions.

One will be in smart manufacturing at the Department of Energy and one in flexible hybrid electronics at the Department of Defense. Each institute will receive $70 million or more of federal investment to be matched by at least $70 million from the private sector for a total of more than $290 million in new investment.”

“The Department of Defense will lead a competition for a new public-private manufacturing innovation institute in flexible hybrid electronics…The Department of Energy will lead a competition for a new public-private manufacturing innovation institute focused on smart manufacturing, including advanced sensors, control, platforms, and models for manufacturing…” The press release invites interested applicants to find more information on the manufacturing innovation institute competitions at www.manufacturing.gov.

While funding manufacturing institutes may have a long-term benefit similar to funding research at other government institutions, there are actions that President Obama and Congress could take that would have a more immediate benefit on the manufacturing industry and create more jobs, such as making the R&D tax credit permanent, addressing currency manipulation by our foreign trading partners, easing taxes to repatriate corporate profits, and actually doing comprehensive tax reform. Let us hope that the economic predictions of a better 2015 than 2014 will come true and that more manufacturing jobs will be created by even more companies returning manufacturing to America.

Tags:manufacturing institutes, Manufacturing jobs, manufacturing strategy, R&D tax credit
Posted in Economy, Jobs, Manufacturing, Reshoring, Taxes/Regulations | No Comments »

Idea Jam Explores Future of Jobs in San Diego

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014

On November 7, 2014, I attended the “Idea Jam – Innovating for the Future” session put on by the Pacific Center for Workforce Innovation in San Diego. The purpose of the session was to identify the major challenges to the San Diego workforce in the coming years and to generate audience participation in visioning exercises to explore new and innovative workforce development ideas. The event was held at Colman University, and major sponsors were SDG&E, Qualcomm, the Eastridge Group, Point Loma Nazarene College, and Cal State University, San Marcos.

To get our creative juices flowing, Master of Ceremonies, Susan Taylor, San Diego’s TV news icon, introduced Futurist Speaker, Thomas Frey, of the DaVinci Institute as the keynote speaker. It is difficult to do justice to his very visual presentation of images of break-through technologies, but his statements alone created much food for thought about the future. He stated, “We are a backward-looking society…the future gets created in the mind. The future creates the present…Visions of the future affect the way people act today.” He rhetorically asked, “What are the big things that need to be accomplished today?

He continued, “Catalytic innovation creates entirely new industries, like electricity did…Most successful companies today are in the second half of the bell curve…the steel industry had its peak employment in the 1980s.”

It was a shock to hear him state that “Two billion jobs will disappear by 2030…Every time you download a mobile app, you are eliminating a piece of a job.” In answer to his own rhetorical question, “Where will our next generation’s jobs come from, he answered, “from new industries that don’t exist now.” He added, “As you raise the bar for our achievement, we create the new norm.”

“Software is heating the world,” he proclaimed. “In 2030, there will be 100 trillion sensors in the world. Information is being parsed into small things.” He cited some of the new enhanced objects such as: Amazon’s Track Car, the Asteroid Moon Micro-imager Experiment (amie) For Smart-1 Mission, the Vitality Glow Cap for medication management, the Ambient Umbrella by Ambient Devices, Mimo’s Baby monitor, the flying Nixie camera (a tiny wearable camera on a wrist band in which the wrist straps unfold to create a quadcopter that flies, takes photos or video, then comes back to you), the Philips biometrics coffee maker that can recognize users via their fingerprint and make coffee just the way that individual likes it, and the Pintofeed, calling itself the “first intelligent pet feeder”

He explained that “we are entering the age of hyperawareness and the quantified self with products such as printable skin sensors, smart body watches, brain hacking, transcranial brain stimulation.”

Frey stated, “3D printing is changing the world. The new HP 3D printer has 30,000 spray nozzles and can utilize over 200 materials. The iBox Nano is now the world’s smallest, least expensive 3D resin printer. Even shoes can be 3D printed, and Contour Crafting has developed a type of ceramics printing that could be used in construction. Whole walls can now be made by 3D printing, and a company in China was the first company to print a small house for under $5,000. The goal is to print an entire house in one day. In the future, you may live in a printed house…Bio printing can now print skin, veins, organs like a liver, limbs, and an exo skeleton, and there is a pill printer that chemprints antibiotics.” He quoted Chris Anderson, former editor of WIRED magazine and now cofounder and CEO of 3DRobotics, as saying, “3D printing is going to be bigger than the internet.”

“We need to prepare our children for jobs that don’t exist and technology that hasn’t been invented, he declared…By 2030, the average person will have to ‘reboot’ their career six times in their lifetime. To do this, we need to frame our work to train people in a faster way…By 2020, half of all traditional colleges will disappear.”

To facilitate this rapid training, he shared that the DaVinci Institute now offers 11-13-week courses in such topics as 3D printing, web design, game design and development and becoming a drone pilot.” He concluded by saying, “The fastest way to create new jobs is to eliminate the old ones out of existence.”

In California, the community college system is already providing this type of accelerated, focused training through their certificate programs in such subjects as multimedia, web design, web server maintenance and security, and culinary arts. It will be relatively easy to add new training topics to the curriculum to meet future needs.

After Mr. Frey’s predictions of the future, a panel of business leaders discussed what is happening in their industries and what new industries should we focus on. Jeff Nichols from Sempra Energy stated that “San Diego is the nexus of cyber security…Delivering electricity and water is synergistic, so there are opportunities to putting these two together.”

Dr. Ed Abeyta from the University of California, San Diego said, “We need to teach skill sets in a non-university setting but he hasn’t seen an online program that successfully replaces teaching in person.” He added, “We need micro-credentials that you could earn rapidly.”

Matt Grob of Qualcomm said, “The companies that change fastest are the small, startup companies. San Diego is very well placed in the robotics industry…UCSD is starting an incubator for robotics” With regard to training, he said, “A combination of a person and a computer are better than a computer or a person alone.”

In answer to the question, how do we prepare for the change and foster the culture of change in others? Dr. Abeyta responded, “Humanity had its core values before technology came, and we must instill those in our children. We need to marry the technology with our core values. It is not about getting the answer; it is Are we asking the right questions?” Dr. Smith of West Health commented, “We can teach how to think and not what to know.”

The last half of the morning was spent in an idea jam session by small table groups to come up with two ideas: most innovative and most likely to succeed. After lunch, the following panel of judges discussed the ideas developed by the audience: Molly Cartmill, Sempra Energy, Michael Alston, Qualcomm, and Mary Walter-Brown, Voice of San Diego. After presenting all of the ideas for the 17 different tables, the audience voted on the best ideas for both categories. The best ideas were:

Most Likely to Succeed

“Tinder, but for networking and mentoring.” (Note: Tinder is a matchmaking mobile app that uses GPS technology, in which users can set a specific radius have the option to match with anyone that is within that distance.)

“Industry developed after school programs to build skill sets and networking for specific career areas.”

“Change the hiring process from resumes to problem solving practices.”

“Retool community centers and libraries to be career path hubs.” (my idea at my table)

Most Innovative:

“Programmer boot camps for under-served communities integrated with soft and life skills.”

“Establish a mentoring program for retired professionals to share advice and knowledge to persons in transition”

“Implement playgrounds of interests at schools to help students see the possibilities i.e. Maker Spacers & digital playgrounds.”

“Geolocation app that reveals available parking, especially in downtown SD via satellite, with timer alerts”

When I think of the fact that I am now on my fourth career path, I can see that six career paths is a realistic prediction for the future. Just like continuous improvement is one of the tools for becoming a Lean company, continuous learning will be a prerequisite for everyone who wants to keep working during their even longer productive lifetime in the future. My definition of success has been to learn something new to the point of proficiency, so I can highly recommend continuous learning to others. It’s what makes life interesting, challenging, and fun!

Posted in Economy, Education, Innovation, Jobs, Manufacturing, Technology | No Comments »

Why We Must Stop the Fast Track Authority in the “Lame Duck” Session

Tuesday, November 18th, 2014

The rumors in Washington, D. C. are that granting President Obama Fast Track Authority under Trade Promotion Authority will be brought up in the “Lame Duck” session, perhaps as an addition to one of the bills extending certain tax credits, called “Tax Extender bills.”

Simply put, granting Fast Track Authority to the president means:

Choice of countries is delegated to President
Executive Branch negotiates and signs a trade agreement before vote by Congress
Allows only 20 hours of debate by Congress
Forbids any amendments to the trade agreement
Requires only a simple majority vote in each House violating U.S. Constitution Article 1 Treaty clause giving the Senate authority to approve a treaty by a supermajority.
Gives Constitutional power over trade to President and takes it away from Congress
Usurps Constitution and is dangerous to give this much power to the Executive Branch

There are two trade agreements that have been in secret negotiations since 2010. The first is the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Eleven nations have participated in the negotiations: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Japan announced its intention to join the agreement last spring. However, the TPP is intended as a “docking agreement,” so other Pacific Rim countries could join over time, and the Philippines, Thailand, Colombia, and others have expressed interest. Even China could join the TPP at a later date without suffering any disadvantage though this would negate the original reason for the TPP as a counter to China’s hegemony in the Pacific.

The TPP is much more than a trade agreement; it is a Trade and Global Governance Agreement because only five of the 30 chapters relate to tariffs and quotas. The other 25 chapters cover such topics as: domestic regulation: food & product safety, financial regulation, investor states’ rights, immigration, intellectual property, federal, state and local laws on taxes, patents, copyrights, trademarks, immigration, environment, labor standards, among many other issues. Clauses in these chapters may even overrule prior acts of Congress without new legislation being introduced, passed in Congress, and signed by the president.

Most dangerous of all, International Tribunals, not U.S. courts, would decide on lawsuits between companies in member countries and U. S. In a commentary article on October 15, 2013, Lt. Col (Retired) Allen West wrote, “TPP would subject the U.S. to the jurisdiction of foreign tribunals under the authority of the World Bank and United Nations. These unelected, unaccountable panels would constitute a judicial authority higher than the U.S. Supreme Court. They would have the power to overrule federal court rulings and order payment of U.S. tax dollars to enforce the special privileges granted to foreign firms that would be exempt from EPA and other regulations that strangle American firms.”

In addition, the U.S. would have to agree to waive Buy America procurement policies for all companies operating in TPP countries. What this means is that the TPP’s procurement chapter would require that all companies operating in any country signing the agreement be provided access equal to domestic firms to U.S. government procurement contracts over a certain dollar threshold. To meet this requirement, the U.S. would have to agree to waive Buy America procurement policies for all companies operating in TPP countries. There are many companies that survived the recession and continue in business today because of the Buy American provisions for defense and military procurement. The TPP could be the death knoll for these companies!

The other trade agreement is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) also known as the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA), which is a proposed free trade agreement between the European Union and the United States. The Obama administration considers the TTIP a companion agreement to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and it is similar in scope and nature to the TPP, incorporating all the same global governance chapters.

In the last 20 years, the U. S. has made trade agreements with 20 nations, of which the major trade agreements are:

NAFTA
Created the World Trade Organization & let China join
Panama Free Trade Agreement
Central America Free Trade Agreement
Colombia Free Trade Agreement
Korea Free Trade Agreement

What have been the consequences of these past trade agreements? One consequence is an increasing trade deficit. In 2013, our total trade deficit in goods was $688.4 billion, of which China represented 46% at $318.4 billion. Our top six trading partners of Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, Germany, and South Korea represent 64% of our total trade deficit.

Another serious consequence is the loss of American jobs. From 2000 to 2010, the U. S. lost 5.8 million manufacturing jobs and 57,000 manufacturing firms closed. Where did most of the jobs go? U.S. Department of Commerce data shows that “U.S. multinational corporations… cut their work forces in the U.S. by 2.9 million during the 2000s while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million.” Millions of people have lost their jobs because corporate CEOs concluded, “It’s cheaper to manufacture where they pay 50 cents/hour and let us pollute all we want.”

As a result, the real unemployment rate is 16.1%, and there are still nearly 2 million less jobs than there were at the start of the Great Recession in December 2007!

The TPP and TTIP/TAFTA are bad for American companies, American workers, and American consumers. What good does it do to have cheaper consumer goods if you don’t have a job?

I urge everyone to Contact your Congressman to ask them to vote no on granting Fast Track Authority!

Posted in Jobs, Manufacturing, Trade, Trade Policy | 2 Comments »

“Manufacturing in Golden State Summit Highlights Threats to Prosperity”

Tuesday, October 28th, 2014

On October 16th, about 130 business leaders met at the conference facilities of AMN Healthcare in San Diego for the third “Manufacturing in the Golden State – Making California Thrive” economic summit. The summit was hosted by State Senator Mark Wyland in partnership with the Coalition for a Prosperous America and a long list of other regional businesses and associations. The purpose of the summit was to discuss how several national and California policies are threatening the growth and prosperity of California manufacturers and what policies should be changed to help them grow and thrive.

After State Senator Wyland welcomed attendees, Michael Stumo, CEO of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, provided an overview of the schedule for the day.

I provided an update to the overview of California manufacturing that I had presented at our summit in Brea on March19th covered in a previous article. California lost 33.3% of manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2009 compared to 29.8% nationwide and 25% of its manufacturing companies. California lags in manufacturing job growth at a .36% rate compared to the national 6.09% rate.

I highlighted that the San Diego region offers a great deal of help for inventors and start-up technology based companies through the San Diego Inventors Forum, CONNECT’s Springboard program, the Small Business Development Centers in North County and South County, CleanTech San Diego, as well as groups like the San Diego Sports Innovators. San Diego also offers more career path and workforce training programs than most other states, including those offered by three of our event sponsors: California Manufacturing Technology Consulting, the Center for Applied Competitive Technologies, and the Lean Six Sigma Institute.

The good news is that California is benefitting from the reshoring trend that is sweeping the county. According to data collected by the Reshoring Initiative, California ranks first in the number of companies (28) that have reshored and third in the number of jobs created by reshoring (6,014).

I then moderated a panel of the following local manufacturers, who gave their viewpoints of the effects of some of our national policies and the challenges of doing business in California:

James Hedgecock, Founder and General Manager of Bounce Composites
Scott Martin, President, Lyon Technologies
Robert Reyes, Head of Strategic Sourcing, Stone Brewing Company

Hedgecock stated that Bounce Composites is less than two years old and makes thermoset composites, starting with paddle boards and branching into small wind turbine blades this year. He bemoaned the fact that in California you have to pay $800 to incorporate a company, which is double to quintuple the cost of incorporating in other states. Also, as a LLC, you have to pay taxes on gross profits rather than net profits, which is tough on a start-up company.

Martin said that Lyon Technologies has been in business since 1915 and has changed its products several times over the years. Current products include bird and reptile incubators, poultry products, and veterinary products, which they export to about 100 countries. He stated that the Value Added Taxes (VATs) that are added to the products they export and the currency manipulation practiced by several countries make it difficult for their products to be competitive in the world marketplace.

Reyes said they are expanding out of San Diego and are building a new $25M brewery and restaurant in the Marienpark Berlin, scheduled to open by end 2015/beginning 2016. Stone exports beer to Germany and other European countries and having a brewery in Germany will ave on shipping costs for exporting. They are also planning on opening a brewery on the East Coast in Virgina.

The national expert panel included Greg Autry, Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California; Pat Choate, economist and author, “Saving Capitalism: Keeping America Strong”; Mike Dolan, Legislative Rep., International Brotherhood of Teamsters; and Michael Stumo, CEO of CPA. The focus of the talks was on national security, manufacturing growth strategies, tax strategies and fixing the trade deficit.

Autry, led off the national panel with the topic of “National Security Concerns with U. S. Trade Regime.” He began by stating, “An economy that builds only F-35s is unsustainable – productive capacity is what wins real wars. Sophisticated systems require complex supply chains of supporting industries. They require experienced production engineers and experienced machinists.” He added that we cannot rely on China to produce what we need for our military and defense systems. “We should not be relying on Russia’s Mr. Putin to launch our satellites and space vehicles and provide us a seat to get to the international space station.”

He pointed out that our technical superiority in military systems will not assure our national security any more than the technical superiority of Nazi Germany’s aircraft and tanks did for them. Economic superiority is what matters. The manufacturing industry of the U. S. out produced Germany during WWII and the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

Autry stated that Wall Street’s new hero, Jack Ma, founder of Chinese company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, is a danger to American interests by the fact that Alibaba just overtook Amazon as the world’s largest online retailer by market capitalization. It was the wealth he created at Amazon that enabled founder Jeff Bezos to now lead a new company, Blue Origin, which was just selected by the United Launch Alliance to finish development of a new engine to replace the Russian made RD-180 rocket engine used by ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket. There is considerable skepticism by many of Mr. Ma’s independence from the Chinese government. Mr. Ma’s next target appears to be PayPal, which is responsible for the wealth of Elon Musk, now CEO and CTO of SpaceX, CEO and chief product architect of Tesla Motors, and chairman of SolarCity.

Next, Michael Stumo presented “A Competitiveness Strategy for America: Balance Trade and Rebuild Domestic Supply Chains.” He said, “Our ultimate goals should be: improved standard of living, full employment, and durable, sustainable growth. America has no strategy to win. Our trade deficit cuts our growth in half. Domestic supply chains were sacrificed to global supply chains; i.e. offshored and hollowed out….We need a strategy to win.”

He pointed out that “free trade is supposed to produce balance and address foreign mercantilism, but our trade policies enable mercantilism…We must replace the goal of ‘eliminating trade barriers’ and have Congress establish a new directive via statue to balance trade.”

He said that to achieve balanced trade, we must address, reciprocity, currency manipulation, forced technology transfer [by China], foreign VAT rebates, state-owned enterprises, and government subsidies.

In conclusion, he recommended that we should:

Create durable comparative advantage through technical superiority, infrastructure, low energy costs, etc.
Balance trade and fight foreign mercantilism
Create our own comparative advantage
Maximize domestic value added
Identify and minimize our advantages while minimizing our disadvantages

In conclusion, he urged, “Don’t be afraid of asserting and pursing our national economic interest.”

The next speaker was Mike Dolan, Legislative Representative for the Teamsters, who has long experience working for Fair Trade (fighting expansion of the job-killing NAFTA/WTO model). He said that big corporations want Congress to pass Trade Promotion Authority in the “lame duck” session to grant the president Fast track Authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) Agreements. He called the TPP “NAFTA on steroids” and said that TTIP is just as bad. He said that Fast Track was invented by President Nixon and has been used 16 times. He said that we need a new form a Trade Promotion Authority where Congress has input with regard to the countries involved in the Agreement, certifies that negotiating goals were met, and votes to approve it before it is signed. He urged attendees to contact their Congressional Representative to oppose the TPP for the following reasons:

“Lack of transparency during negotiations warrants more thorough consideration than a up or down vote
Under previous trade deals, the U. S. has hemorrhaged jobs and cannot afford more of the same
The TPP is too large and complex to delegate constitutional authority away from Congress”

Pat Choate (Economist; Author, Saving Capitalism: Keeping America Strong) discussed how our trading partners have used Value Added Taxes (VATs), and currency manipulation to their advantage and to the disadvantage of the U. S. VATs or border adjustable consumption taxes are used by other countries to offset income, payroll, or other employer taxes to help their manufacturers be more competitive in the global marketplace or to offset other costs like national health care or pension programs. VATs range from a low of 10% to a high of 24%, for an average of 17%.

While tariffs have been dropped since 1968 as part of many trade agreements signed since then, the effective trade barriers have remained constant because of the VATs being imposed.

These consumption taxes have been a causative factor in increasing our trade deficits with our trading partners, which was $471.5 billion in 2013, $318 billion with China alone. He supports CPA’s advocacy of making changes in U. S. trade policy to address this unfairness which tremendously distorts trade flows.

During lunch, keynote speaker Dan DiMicco, Chairman Emeritus of Nucor Steel Corporation, spoke on “Seizing the Opportunity.” He led off by shocking the audience with facts about the real state of our economy and our unemployment rate. By September 2014, we still had not reached the level of employment that we had when the recession began in December 2007 although 81 months had passed. We lost 8.7 million jobs from December 2007 to the “trough” reached in February 2010, but because our recovery has been much slower than the previous recessions of 1974, 1981, 1990, and 2001, the gap in recovery of jobs compared to these recessions is actually 12,363 jobs.

In contrast to the misleading U-3 unemployment rate of 5.9% for September 2014 that is reported in the news media, the U-6 rate was 11.8%. The government’s U-6 rate is more accurate because it counts “marginally attached workers and those working part-time for economic reasons.”However, the actual unemployment is worse because the participation in the workforce has dropped from 66.0% to 62.7%. In other words, if the December 2013 Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate was back to the December 2007 level of 66.0%, it would add 8.2 million people to the ranks of those looking for jobs.The manufacturing industry lost 20% of its jobs, and the construction industry lost 19% of its jobs.

Unemployment Data Adjusted For Decline in Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate
(Adjusted For Decline from December 2007 Level Of 66.0% to 62.8% in September 2014)

Reported Unemployed U.S. Workers	9,262,000
Involuntary Part-time workers	7,103,000
Marginally Attached To Labor Force Workers	2,226,000
Additional Unemployed Workers With 66% CLF Participation Rate	8,199,000
Unemployed U.S. Workers In Reality	26,770,000
Adjusted Civilian Labor force	166,287,000
Unemployment Rate In Reality	16.1%

DiMicco said, “We got in this position from 1970 until today because of failed trade policies allowing mercantilism to win out against true FREE Trade. We bought into wrongheaded economic opinions that America could become a service-based economy to replace a manufacturing-based economy. Manufacturing supply chains are the Wealth Creation Engine of our economy and the driver for a healthy and growing middle class! The result has been that manufacturing shrank from over 30% to 9.9% of GDP causing the destruction of the middle class. It created the service/financial based Bubble Economy (Dot.com/Enron/Housing/PONZI scheme type financial instruments.)”

He added, “We have had 30 years of massive increases in inefficient and unnecessary Government regulations. These regulations, for the most part, in the past have been put in place by Congress and the Executive Branch. However, today they are increasingly being put in place by unelected officials/bureaucrats as they intentionally by-pass Congress.

American’s prosperity in the 20^th century arose from producing more than it consumed, saving more than it spent, and keeping deficits to manageable and sustainable levels. Today, America’s trade and budget deficits are on track to reach record levels threatening our prosperity and our future.”

He said, “Creating jobs must be our top priority, and we need to create 26-29 million jobs over the next 4-5 years. There are four steps we can take to bring about job creation:

Achieve energy independence.
Balance our trade deficit.
Rebuild our infrastructure for this century.
Rework American’s regulatory nightmare.

In conclusion, DiMicco said, “We need to recapture American independence through investment in our country’s people, infrastructure, and energy independence, and by reversing the deficit-driven trends that currently define our nation’s economic policy. Real and lasting wealth IS, and always has been, created by innovating, making and building things — ALL 3 ? and servicing the goods producing sector NOT by a predominance of servicing services!”

As the mid-term election approaches, we need to cast our votes for candidates who address the serious issues discussed at the summit, so that we can work together as Americans to restore California to the Golden State it once was and restore America to be “a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere,” as declared by Ronald Reagan in 1974.

Posted in Economic Development, Jobs, Manufacturing, National security, Reshoring, Taxes/Regulations, Trade Policy, Training | No Comments »

San Diego Celebrates Manufacturing Week not just Manufacturing Day

Tuesday, October 14th, 2014

To highlight the importance of manufacturing to the economy of the San Diego region, the Mayor and City Council declared the week of September 30 – October 5, 2014 to be Manufacturing Week instead of only Manufacturing Day on October 3^rd.

One of the highlights of the week was an all day Workforce Conference held on October 2nd put on by the San Diego Workforce Partnership and the San Diego and Imperial Counties Community Colleges Association Regional Consortium. The conference presented a summary of a detailed research report conducted by these two organizations of each of the sectors that are vital to the regional economy. San Diego’s five priority sectors are:

Life Sciences
Health Care
Clean Energy
Information & Communication Technologies
Advanced Manufacturing

More than 250 businesses were surveyed for the report, and industry associations and organizations with industry expertise also contributed to the study. The results of the study can be used to help these priority sectors, which are experiencing rapid growth and projected skills shortages, conduct workforce planning and management of resources. The Conference presentations included an overview of the research findings and panel discussions with industry experts and employers.

Since my interest in these sectors is limited to manufacturing, I only attended the session on Advanced Manufacturing, presented by Dr. Mary Walshok, dean of UC San Diego Extension. Describing San Diego’s manufacturing industry, she said, “It ain’t your old assembly line manufacturing. It’s about a network of suppliers. It’s about organizations that are prototyping and doing R & D on site…I think the moniker for San Diego should be drones, phones and genomes … Let’s add to that surfboards, skateboards, and golf equipment.”

Key data presented was the fact that “The Advanced Manufacturing sector accounts for 10% of all establishments, 15% of all paid employment and 22% of all annual payrolls” in San Diego County. The fact that the “sector is dominated by small-to-medium-sized businesses with 82% of firms employing less than 20 employees” confirmed my more than 30 years experience in San Diego’s manufacturing industry.

Utilizing a broader definition of what constitutes manufacturing, the report listed the manufacturing employment at 170,800 in contrast to the California Economic Development Department total of 96,900 manufacturing jobs in San Diego in August 2014, an increase of 2,200 manufacturing jobs since August 2013. The report projects a 6% increase in manufacturing jobs by 2018 for a total of 180,700 jobs.

The Advanced Manufacturing sector is no longer dominated by any one industry like it was 20 years when aerospace/defense was the dominant industry. Now, it is comprised of diverse industries in which no industry has more than 13% (electronic equipment and components). Aerospace/defense has dropped to 11%, and the fabricated metal products industry comes in a close third at 10%. Industrial/commercial machinery and computer equipment represents 8% of the industry, and signs and advertising specialties represents 6% of the sector. I was surprised that biotechnology only represents 5%, when San Diego is ranked third in the nation as a center of the Life Science industry sector after Greater Boston and the San Francisco Bay Area.

The report states, “Most Advanced Manufacturing occupations require high school education at a minimum. Moving up the career ladder requires on-the-job experience or more academic credentials, some are provided by 2-year or 4-year colleges. Many occupations require a specific set of skills for their workers, which can be acquired with an education credential. There are certain educational credentials that can be applied to multiple occupations.”

The study revealed the four occupational clusters that are most commonly employed in Advanced Manufacturing:

Engineers
Computer/Software
Drafters and Technicians
Production

The drafter category has morphed into people with expertise in Computer Aided Design and 3D modeling skills instead of traditional hand-drawn drafting skills.

The top five occupations that have a gap in the supply of workers produced by the regions educational institutions compared with the number of available job openings are:

Software developers, applications and systems software
Assemblers and fabricators
Aerospace engineers
Computer user support specialists
Machinists

The report goes into specific detail about the skill sets needed for each of the above occupations. To address this gap in the supply of workers with the requisite skills, the following recommendations are made:

•” Inform the public about the skills and levels of compensation in the Advanced Manufacturing sector.

• Develop an Advanced Manufacturing talent pipeline.

• Increase employer knowledge about business assistance programs for workforce training.

• Add an internship and/or work experience requirements to education and training programs.

• Encourage critical thinking and real world application in education and training programs.

• Standardize certifications and articulation agreements.”

Dr. Trudy Gerald, Deputy Sector Navigator for Advanced Manufacturing at San Diego City College moderated a panel of that included two manufacturing representatives: Nancy Boessow, HR Manager for Johnson Matthey Medical Components and Rick Urban, COO and CFO of Quality Controlled Manufacturing, Inc., a leading precision machining manufacturer of complex components and assemblies for the aerospace, defense, and energy industries.

Joining the panel was Jo Marie Diamond, President and CEO of the East County Economic Development Council and newly appointed as the region’s representative on the Executive Board for the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership – Southern California, one of only 12 federally designated Investing in Manufacturing Community Partnership (IMCP) consortia and the only one west of the Mississippi. Ms. Diamond said that the advanced manufacturing sector has an aging workforce, so “We’re going to have to fill that pipeline [with training and education].”

There has been a shortage of skilled machinists, especially lathe operators for the past 15 years, and since I have discussed this issue with Mr. Urban personally, I am aware of what his company is doing with regard to training. The company website states, “QCMI needed to establish an Education / Training Competitive Workforce Initiative. The QCMI WEA winning initiative includes: a mentoring program for entry-level employees; promotion and training from within; partnering with high schools and colleges; and the creation of a nonprofit Academy.” The Academy training and apprenticeship program began earlier this year with a curriculum that took a year to develop.

At the conference, he stated, “We’re going to do a lot of training…The people that come in at an entry level position are allowed to stay there for six months. They have to move up or it doesn’t make sense because we have to keep that pipeline going.”

The conference was well attended by people within the five industry sectors, as well as those seeking to make career transitions or improve their skills, career counselors, trainers, and educators. The presentations and panelists provided a complete picture of what employers are looking for in the current and future labor force and set the stage for the events that followed on Manufacturing Day.

Manufacturing Day began with a breakfast at the new central library in downtown San Diego organized by the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation. President and CEO Mark Cafferty and Congressional Representatives Susan Davis and Scott Peters gave introductory remarks welcoming attendees, and then Jack Stewart, president of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, moderated the following a panel of local manufacturers that represent a cross section of San Diego’s diverse industries:

Bob Cassidy, Senior Director of Operations, ViaSat – producer of satellite and other digital communication products for the commercial and government sectors

Guillermo Romero, General Manager, 3D Robotics’ plant in Tijuana – producer of miniature commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (drones)

Kevin Graney, Vice President and General Manager, General Dynamics NASSCO – shipbuilding of Naval and commercial ships and tankers

Carlos Nunez, COO, Care Fusion – producer of infusion, interventional procedures, medication and medical supply management, respiratory care and surgical products.

Dave Klimkiewicz, co-founder of Sector 9 skateboards

Mr. Stewart remarked, “Manufacturing was the industry on the outs. Service industries aren’t creating the good paying jobs…”This isn’t your father’s factory floor anymore…Now manufacturing is new, high tech, and robotic…Just as manufacturers have retooled their operations to be more efficient, more clean, more innovative, the universities, community colleges, the high schools must retool their education systems.” He added, “Advanced manufacturers in California have to be the cleanest, the best, cut costs, and improve productivity.”

Each panelist gave a brief overview of their company’s products and services, and then took turns answering questions posed by the moderator. With regard to finding qualified workers, their comments corroborated the comments of the panelists the previous day at the Workforce Partnership conference.

Cassidy said, “We have a very stable workforce with very low turnover, but it’s an aging population, especially on the electro-mechanical team…We need more with solder training and wireless technician certificates.”

Graney said that they have the largest backlog in their history and are hiring anyone who can fit or weld. “We end up training everybody that basically comes in the gate,” he said. “We’ve got eight weeks to develop a fitter or welder, before they’re out on the production run. We have had really only frankly limited success doing it any other way.” He added that they are making data available electronically to their welders at their workstations, and their painting process has reduced 90% of emissions.

All of the panelists made comments about how high schools need to get back to basics, including computer skills and technical training in wood shop, auto shop, and metal shop for those not going to go to college. Mr. Nunez said that STEM education needs to be supplemented with hands-on projects, such as ones using a “Raspberry Pi [A breadboard device for prototyping circuits].”

In answer to the moderator’s question about what are the benefits of bi-national manufacturing, Mr. Nunez said that the majority of the manufacturing for their infusion pumps and tubing takes place in Tijuana and Mexicali. Mr. Romero said that most of their SKUs are made in Tijuana, and the close proximity allows their engineers to visit the plant in the morning. He said, “It’s important to buy the right equipment and hire the right people.

The panelists touted San Diego’s collaborative effort among businesses and organizations, as well as opportunities created by the region’s proximity to Mexico. They also commented on the higher costs of doing business in California compared with other regions.

After the breakfast ended, I went on three tours out of the more than 25 tours offered in the San Diego region’s manufacturers. First, I visited D & K Engineering in Rancho Bernardo. D&K Engineering was started in 1999 by Scott Dennis and Alex Kunczynski as an engineering design and product development firm that evolved into providing contract manufacturing services for such companies as ecoATM and Retail Inkjet. D & K offered tours every half hour from 11 AM – 3 PM and 10 people were allowed on each tour. Besides business people, there were one mother and her pre-teen, home-schooled son and daughter on my tour.

Next, I visited Alphatec Spine in Carlsbad that makes implants made from PEEK and Titanium used in spinal surgery and reconstruction. My last stop was a mixer sponsored by the California Manufacturing Technology Consulting and the City of Santee at one of our many microbreweries, BNS Brewing & Distilling Company in Santee. The guest of honor at the mixer was Sid Voorakkara, a Senior Business Development Specialist from the Office Governor Brown. He provided the attendees with a brief overview of the new California Competes Tax Credit and the Manufacturing and R & D equipment sales and use tax exemption (for details go to http://www.business.ca.gov/ )

The producers of Manufacturing Day 2014 have bragged that “This year’s Manufacturing Day set another record with almost twice as many events as last year. The final count was over 1,650 events in all 50 U.S. states, three Canadian provinces, and Puerto Rico.” However, until we get more educators, parents, and students to attend these tours, we will not achieve our goal of attracting more youth to manufacturing and other STEM careers.

Posted in Economic Development, Education, Jobs, Manufacturing, Training | No Comments »

How to Combat the Manufacturing Skills Gap

Monday, September 1st, 2014

“Creating a robust pipeline of workers to address the needs of U.S. manufacturers has become a national priority” according to a recently released report by ToolingU, a division of SME (formerly the Society of Manufacturing Engineers) titled, “Using Competency Models to Drive Competitiveness and Combat the Manufacturing Skills Gap.” The report discusses the results of a survey on the skills gap and current training, defines competency vs. competency models, explains different models, and explores best practices.

American’s manufacturers are increasingly challenged to find the skilled workers they need to fill good jobs. As more and more “Baby Boomers” retire, we need to address this issue if we want to keep the manufacturing engine going and growing to keep our economy strong.

Currently, 9 out of 10 manufacturers are having difficulty finding skilled workers and they say this is directly hurting the bottom line, according to a 2013 SME and Brandon Hall survey. In fact, the survey revealed:

64% of manufacturers say productivity losses are a result of a skills gap.
41% cited quality losses
56% report the gap in skilled labor has impacted their company’s ability to grow
78% cited a lack of qualified candidates as one of the top two factors that impacted
their ability to hire a skilled workforce
78% cited a lack of qualified candidates as one of the top two factors that impacted
their ability to hire a skilled workforce

There are four main reasons for the skills gap:

Limited pipeline – Fewer people are pursuing Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education and fewer youth are choosing manufacturing as a career.
Retiring workforce – Baby Boomers are retiring and about 10,000 per day will turn 65 for the next 19 years.
Changing pace of technology – Technical innovation is moving so quickly that it can be a challenge for workers who are unable to keep pace and are left behind.
Reshoring – Returning manufacturing back to the U.S. creates a bigger demand for jobs.

In January 2014, President Barrack Obama signed a memorandum to initiate a review of all the federal training programs to “develop a specific action plan…to make the workforce and training system more job-driven, integrated, and effective.”

Additionally, recent government investments in the Manufacturing Innovation Centers, as well as a new $450 million round of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) Grants Program demonstrates the commitment to solving these workplace issues.

The SME survey asked if the organization had a company-wide plan in place to address its skills gaps. The responses were:

54% “No, we do not have a company-wide plan in place for filling our skills gaps among skilled workers in critical roles at this time.
26% Yes, we have a company-wide plan for filling our skills gaps among skilled workers in critical roles through the next 12 months.
14% Yes, we have a company-wide plan filling our skills gaps among skilled workers in critical roles through the next 5 years

The survey asked if the company’s skilled workforce training programs are built on specified competencies defined in job roles ? 71% said yes, 23% said No, and 6% said they don’t know.

In answer to the question about the best description of your company’s current approach to defining “skilled worker” roles, the responses were:

40% We have written job roles, competencies, experiences, and education.
21% We have general written job roles only.
18% We have defined workforce roles in terms of written job roles, competencies (skills and behaviors), experiences, education, cognitive abilities, motivation factors and cultural fit.
10% We have competency based written job roles only.
9% We have not defined our “skilled worker” roles.
1% Don’t know.

In the last 20 years, the training process has become much more sophisticated. Training is no longer one size fits all. Organizations are looking at employees individually and building customized training programs specifically to fit their strengths and weaknesses.

Professional and technical certifications provide objective confirmation and assurance of skill achievement in various areas of technical expertise. Certification validates a level of expertise and provides employees with advancement opportunities that motivate them to continue learning.

Certification organizations, such as the National Institute of Metalworking Skills (NIMS), Manufacturing Skills Standards Council (MSSC), SME, and American Welding Society (AWS), require manufacturers to show that employees have applied and retained the knowledge and skills they received through training.

The report contrasts “competency” with a “Competency Model.” Competency is defined as the capability to apply a set of related knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) to successfully perform functions or tasks in a defined work setting. They serve as the basis for skill standards that specify the KSAs needed for success and measurement criteria for assessing competency attainment. A competency framework is used to design a plan specific to a particular manufacturing environment or organization or when there are no manufacturing certifications tied to desired job roles.

A competency model is defined as a collection of competencies that together define successful performance in a particular work setting. Competency models are the foundation for functions such as recruitment and hiring, training and development, and performance management. Competency models can be developed for specific jobs, job groups, organizations, occupations, or industries.

There are two main industry competency models for manufacturing in the marketplace:

Department of Labor (DOL) Advanced Manufacturing Competency Model – Created by the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and other industry organizations, the Advanced Manufacturing Competency Model is a broad platform outlining critical work functions and topical areas. It includes crosscutting competencies applicable to various industry sectors.

Tooling U-SME Competency Framework or Manufacturing Excellence – Created by a cross-section of manufacturing experts and introduced in 2014, the tool features a comprehensive series of competency models in nine manufacturing functional areas and is made up of more than 60 job role competency models, each outlining knowledge and skill objectives for job roles in production, technician, lead technician/technologist and engineer levels. Designed to complement other competency models in the marketplace, the Competency Framework can be used “as is” or customized to individual work practices at a facility. The framework is mapped directly to Tooling U-SME’s extensive training resources and a specially designed system allows for seamless validation and record keeping.

Implementing an ISO quality management system to obtain certification or becoming a Lean enterprise requires a talent development program, which means training. Companies are finding that competency models provide the rigor needed to meet the ISO and Lean quality objectives, guidelines, and reporting requirements.

Competency models allow companies to combat the increasing talent shortage and achieve stronger performance from their workforce while providing clear development pathways and career growth opportunities for their employees.

Advantages for companies:

Ensures enterprise-wide consistency making the workforce more flexible and dynamic.
Streamlines the training process and cuts costs by eliminating unnecessary/redundant training to focus on true needs.
Helps managers easily evaluate worker performance levels defined using specific behavioral indicators, which reduces subjective assessment and increases assessment accuracy.

Advantages for employees:

Enhances employee satisfaction based on the rationality of the system.
Defines and explains to each worker what they need to do to improve their skills.

The first step to get started is for human resources to work with production and operations managers to develop job descriptions that accurately define the qualifications needed by workers, including both knowledge and skills. This analysis provides the foundation for a program that meets a company’s objectives related to budget, consistency, measurability and results.

Good training requires both knowledge and skills that may not come from informal knowledge transfer or tribal learning. It requires understanding the concepts of what and why a job is done a certain way, and then requires on-the-job training to validate that the worker can fulfill the needs of that job.

The key is commitment from top management down to individual employees. It is important to communicate to all employees that the focus is on knowledge and skill requirements of the job and align training designed to help each person perform his or her job more efficiently, while providing new growth opportunities. An effective training program will include a validation process that not only tests a new skill but provides employees with the opportunity to gain new skills, apply them on the job, and then have their new skill sets validated through assessments, testing, and certifications.

A well-designed competency model can become the foundation for performance management, talent acquisition and leadership development for manufacturing companies. To combat the current and future talent gap and build a high performance team, it is critical for companies to have a system in place to codify knowledge and skills required for specific job roles aligned with the appropriate training.

Posted in Education, Jobs, Manufacturing, Training | 1 Comment »

STEM Education Matters to our National Security, Innovation and World Leadership

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2014

Over the last 230 years, the United States became a global leader, in large part, through the genius and hard work of its scientists, engineers and innovators. Today, a little over 4% of the workforce is employed directly in science, engineering, and technology. Yet, this small group of workers is critical to economic innovation and productivity.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are widely regarded as critical to be competitive in the global economy. A growing shortage of science-based talent in our workplaces and universities represents a serious problem for our nation. Expanding and developing the STEM workforce is a critical issue for government, industry leaders, and educators. However, comparatively few American students are pursuing educational majors in STEM career paths.

If we want to attract today’s youth to careers in science, engineering, mathematics, and high-tech manufacturing, we need to show them the variety of career opportunities that exist in these industries. We need to change their perceptions about what the manufacturing industry is like and help them realize that manufacturing careers pay 25-50 percent higher than non-manufacturing jobs, so they will choose to be part of modern manufacturing.

As I have written in past articles, we need to reacquaint youth with the process of designing and building products from an early age and provide them with the opportunities to learn in both traditional and non-traditional ways. Experts agree that we need to restore shop classes to our high schools and establish apprenticeship programs to improve the image of manufacturing careers and portray manufacturing careers as fun and exciting.

The SME (formerly Society of Manufacturing Engineers) “Making Manufacturing Cool” program and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) “Dream It. Do It^TM” program are helping to expose our youth to the modern manufacturing environment and change the image of manufacturing to one that is “cool” and full of exciting career opportunities.

These new programs are building on the work of the non-profit organization, Project Lead The Way®, which has been working since 1997 to promote STEM curriculum for middle and high school students during the school year, along with the Gateway Academy, which is a one- or two-week day camp for 6th – 8th graders that includes team-building exercises, individual and team projects, and utilizes the latest technology to solve problems.

However, none of the above programs are geared specifically to girls, and it is an even bigger challenge to attract girls and young women to technical careers. Studies have shown that when role models and mentors are provided to girls, they are more likely to follow a similar career path.

Now, there is a new program in development by Invincible Enterprises, ME, Inc., an online and mobile app that provides Role Models, a Game Plan and Mentoring options to encourage teens to create a life of fulfilling rewards by enter thriving careers in STE@M industries. Helping with ME, Inc. are advisors with significant workforce, career development, empowerment, and business expertise. The program incorporates a PLAYBOOK for Teens, created by Cari Lyn Vinci & Carleen MacKay, which is available in print and digital format at Amazon.

In the PLAYBOOK, girls can meet fascinating women in STE@M (the “@” stands for “art”) and follow the “plays” of successful young women to help them create their own “Dream Career.” The PLAYBOOK is dedicated to the smart, talented teenage girls who will become the future business owners and leaders in STE@M industries. It will also provide a tool for organization and corporate partners to use to solve their future talent pool problems.

Permission was granted for me to share the following two role model stories:

Allison Goodman’s story – Allison is a young woman with a talent for stretching her limits. Allison, an electrical and computer engineer at Intel, is a pro at solving new problems by creating new, patentable ideas. She is particularly interested in increasing computer speed to help people connect and share data faster than ever before. To accelerate getting information around the world so it feels instantaneous, Allison creates products that are a combination of writing software programs and electrical components that together try to predict what we want to accomplish with our computer.

Her story began when she started to sort out and prioritize the different things that she found interesting. She tried, but couldn’t find that “one thing” that was most important to her. Allison’s father helped by telling her he would pay for ONE year of school – but only if she studied engineering. Since this was the only deal offered, she accepted it and left home for college.

Allison came to appreciate her father’s wisdom. It helped her become self-reliant. Knowing she had to pay for the balance of college, Allison applied for scholarships and soon discovered that scholarships in engineering were not as difficult to get as she had once thought. While Allison had initially struggled to find the “one thing” she wanted to do, she now realizes that the opportunity to study hands-on engineering opened her eyes to a number of options that she had never considered.

Today, Allison finds challenges and opportunities at Intel. She has been able to change roles every few years and her technical talents have led to positions in project management and customer service. Imagine. Allison has travelled to 22 countries on behalf of Intel, has met interesting and dynamic people, continues to learn about the world, and finds that new opportunities are always around the next corner. Fantastic!

Adrienne Huffman’s story – This story tells the tale of a curious young girl who found that computer engineering and electrical engineering both challenged her curiosity. What to do? She graduated from Florida A&M University with two degrees: a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a B.S. in Computer Engineering. Then, she topped off her Bachelor’s degrees with an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State.

In college, Adrienne was active with the National Society of Black Engineers. They provided encouragement and a venue to develop her leadership skills. Adrienne was inspired by members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, an organization she later joined. Adrienne identifies with the motto of Dr. Paulette Walker, the 25th National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Powerful words of inspiration to young women who, in addition to their commitment to academic learning, must develop strong senses of self-worth in order to reach their goals.

Adrienne’s academic interests developed along the way. She, like so many people, began pursuit of a career in computer engineering but found that her interests shifted as she learned. Early influences included her parents who taught her the valuable lessons she lives by today. Notably, they taught her “in order to achieve success, you have to continue to push through hard moments.”

Today, Adrienne is a Hardware Engineer at a Fortune 100 company. Her career has rewarded her with a very comfortable lifestyle even as hard work continues to challenge her. She is very active in community focused, professional organizations, and travels frequently. She takes some time and money for herself and enjoys shopping as a self-directed reward strategy. Many wise people believe that it is this balance of learning, working hard, giving and taking that is the most powerful argument for achieving a life well lived.

At the end of each story, the Playbook Role Models share heart-felt advice for girls to apply to their career path. Then, questions are asked of the reader to help them take the first step to writing their own playbook.

In the “Afterword,” Ms. Vinci and Ms McKay wrote, “Although the young women you read about come from diverse backgrounds and were born with various talents, dreams and personalities, they share several important characteristics. First, they look at life as a year round school. They embrace the role of “student” beyond their formal education. Committed to growth, these ladies are aware and open to the possibilities the world offers. Second, they understand that success is not fast or easy. Failure at the beginning is common and they used early “unsuccessful outcomes” as part of the learning process. They said YES to opportunities and added life experiences to their playbook of skills. Third, these young women took responsibility. They understand, “IT’S UP TO ME TO CREATE THE LIFE I WANT TO LIVE.” Based on a future they dreamed of, they developed the skills necessary to take control and design the lives they want. And, existing resources didn’t determine their success. They succeeded because they believed in themselves. It was their courage, willingness and determination that led them to be exceptional rather than average.”

Utilization of the Playbook for Teens will help teenage girls see that STEM career paths offer enormous opportunities for them to create the life they want to live. Perhaps SME, NAM and Project Lead The Way® would benefit from incorporating the Playbook for Teens into their programs.

Posted in Education, Jobs, Manufacturing, Training | No Comments »

Manufacturing Thrives in San Diego’s North County Region

Tuesday, July 8th, 2014

On the morning of July 1^st, the San Diego North Economic Development Council (SDNEDC) hosted a North County Manufacturing Executive Roundtable at the City of Vista Civic Center. Over 100 professionals were welcomed by County Supervisor Dave Roberts and Lee Morrison of Bank of America. Bank of America and The Eastridge Group of Staffing Companies sponsored the Roundtable.

In an interview prior to the event, KPBS Morning Edition anchor Deb Welsh spoke to Carl Morgan, CEO of the San Diego North Economic Development Council. Morgan said. “Manufacturing is alive and well in San Diego’s North County.” He said the manufacturing executive roundtable would discuss why companies chose to locate and stay in the region. Ms. Morgan asked him what North County’s six key industry clusters are, and he responded that “the sports and active lifestyle, clean technology, biotechnology and medical and informational technology “are doing very, very well” besides the craft and brew industry.

Reo Carr, executive editor of the San Diego Business Journal, moderated the panel, which also discussed such topics as reshoring of manufacturing, environmental concerns, filling the gap between education and manufacturers’ need for skilled labor, sufficient, accessible transportation, and the economic incentives that are and should be available.

The six panelists were: Clark Crawford, VP Sales and Business Development, Soitec Solar, which manufacturersconcentrated photovoltaic (“CPV”) solar modules; Christine Jensen, special programs coordinator at Mira Costa College, which offers classes in biotechnology, engineering, and machining; Jeffrey McCain, CEO, McCain, Inc, a pioneer of advanced traffic control equipmentas well as a contract manufacturer; Michele Nash-Hoff, President, ElectroFab Sales and Chair, California Chapter of the Coalition for a Prosperous America; Chris Roth, vice president, Lee & Associates, the Nation’s largest broker owned commercial real estate services firm.; and Martin Wood, CEO, Delkin Devices, the largest US memory card manufacturer.

Crawford said that when his company (Soitec Solar Industries headquarted in Grenoble, France) decided to set up another manufacturing plant in the U.S., they were wooed to come to many states, including Texas, but they chose to move to California because California’s GO-Biz worked with them to identify possible site locations around the state and to define all statewide incentives that could be available to their company. GO-Biz participated in several rounds of site selection tours that helped to qualify the final locations, out of which they chose San Diego. They were able to get the former Sony building in Rancho Bernardo before it went on the open market. When fully operational, Soitec will directly employ 450 and indirectly support 1,000 jobs.

The other reason they chose California is that it is the largest market for solar energy, and California offers good financial incentives for residents and business to convert to solar energy.

Crawford mentioned that GO-Biz also worked with the California Employment Training Panel (ETP) staff to help qualify Soitec for training funds to help their company train and prepare employees for the high-skilled jobs at their newly established factory in San Diego. During my subsequent phone interview, Mr. Crawford told me they were awarded $300,000 in training funds by the California ETP, and they provided over 15,000 training hours to their San Diego employees. They completed the training in early April 2014.

When asked why his company stays in California instead of moving to another state, McCain said, “California is currently the 8th largest economy in the world. A tremendous amount of our business, current and future, will come from this economy. Even though it is still difficult to find qualified employees, it is my experience that California is rich in qualified workforce, compared to other states.”

He added, “Our success depends greatly on the advantages of our workforce in Mexico. However, over the last 20 years, I have come to realize the culture in Mexico makes it difficult to do manufacturing that requires ingenuity and innovation. We will typically do our first articles and fixturing and any automation type manufacturing in the U.S. When it comes to labor intense, higher volume products, we can turn it over to the plant in Mexico where they can be very successful producing quality products. That allows the company to compete successfully, not only in the U.S. but also against offshore companies. The operation in Mexico, just over the last two years, has allowed us to grow our U.S. side, which has nearly 200 employees.”

In contrast, Martin Wood, stated, “We are solicited often by other States to move our manufacturing facility and jobs to NV, TX, FL, AZ and others. While it would be disruptive, in all cases, it would be like handing employees and the company a raise. Lower or zero State taxes is a big incentive to move. “

“While previous offers were less appealing, they are becoming more and more sophisticated involving real estate and grants, development and hiring help, and of course, no taxes for an extended period or permanently. Any business that is truly run for profit above all would be foolish to not at least consider these offers. We try not to let it consume us, and only entertain them on an annual basis. Right now, California edges out other states in our analysis, based on a number of support, service availability, and quality of life issues, but the gap is narrowing.”

“People in City, County and State Government should be aware this poaching is going on, and try to find a way to bring advantages to manufacturers in California and incentivize them to stay. We know we bring high paying employment wherever we go, and our customers are based worldwide. I see no reason these offers will not continue and expect them to get more and more appealing. Don’t get me wrong, I love California and my family is firmly entrenched here, but to truly own and manage a manufacturing business, you must make hard decisions and be right most of the time.”

Roth stated “the quality of life here in Southern California is a great incentive for companies to continue operating here even though [manufacturing companies] are not receiving the same type of incentives from the local and state governments.” This was one of the major points made in explaining why manufacturers tend to stay in California, despite the sometimes harsh business environment. Roth also stated that a key decision factor in contemplating company relocation is the difficulty entailed in moving employees and their families.

I commented that a company is more than a product; it is also the people who formed and comprise the existing company, and many times, employees aren’t willing to relocate to another state, and the company loses people key to its success. This is often what happens when an out-of-state company buys a San Diego regional company. Key employees don’t move with the company, and the acquisition becomes “buying a product” rather than “buying a company.” In addition, I pointed out that over 90% of California’s manufacturers are less than 100 people, and their customers are most local obtained through word of mouth and referrals. If they decide to move the company, it would be as if they started a new company from scratch.

When Reo Carr asked the question about reshoring, I explained that it started because of quality issues and expanded because of increases in wages in China over the last few years. I mentioned that China and other Asian nations don’t honor U.S. patent laws, which leads to intellectual property theft, hurting U.S. companies in the long run. The other panelists added their opinions as to why outsourcing manufacturing to China is becoming of a thing of the past (increasing wages, quality control, and logistics problems and problem-resolution) and why America is benefiting from the shift to returning manufacturing to America.

McCain confirmed that the contract manufacturing division of his business is benefitting from regional companies returning manufacturing to America.

In answer to the question about the impact of environmental and other regulations, I pointed out that we have been outsourcing our pollution to China and other Asian countries to escape the costs of regulation here. The consequences of industrialization with environmental regulations has been horrific for China and India, which I described one of the chapters in my book (Can American Manufacturing be Saved? Why we should and how we can) When asked about the environmental regulations that apply to his plant in Mexico, Mr. McCain said that Mexico is quickly catching up with the U. S.

A question from the audience about the shortage of local, trained machinists led into a discussion about two connected issues: workforce training and mass transit. Ms. Jensen shared that colleges are shifting in the programs they are now offering in an effort to meet the needs of employers. Mira Costa has both certificate and Associate degree courses in biotechnology, engineering, and manufacturing skills such as machining. She encouraged the companies to check with their local community colleges to inquire about the various programs available. I shared that there are now four high schools that provide up to two years of training to be a machinist and that for years and years, the San Diego Community College District has provided machining and welding training, as well as other manufacturing skills.

Wood said, “it is hard to find people to fill the positions they need, because most of [the blue collar laborers] live further south, in South County.” Crawford seconded that comment, saying that workers are coming from points south, as well…even from Mexico. McCain added mass transportation needs to improve to deal with the issue of where employees are traveling from to accommodate the job availability.

I pointed out that San Diego doesn’t have a “hub” center of manufacturing where everyone is going to work. The industrial business parks are scattered around the county (mainly in 13 of the 18 cities in San Diego County). Mass transit doesn’t work well for this type of region, and I don’t know how feasible it would ever be for mass transit to get workers coming from across the border to these scattered business parks.

In conclusion, the panelists shared that for the time being, the advantages of doing business in California outweighed the disadvantages. The biggest draw is still the quality of life the region offers, as well as the great weather. I shared that the successful company that stays in San Diego has a high dollar, high value, low to mid volume product, which has proprietary technology and lower labor content. When this type company does a Total Cost Analysis of doing business in San Diego/California, it pencils out positively. Crawford agreed that doing this kind of analysis is what enabled them to make the decision to locate Soitec in San Diego.

While it is hard to compete against the incentives and low or no taxes of some other states, we may have fewer companies making the decision to move out of California if more companies did this type of analysis. Of course, it would be even better if the governor and legislature actually proposed and passed legislation that would benefit manufacturers instead of adding to their costs of doing business in California.

Posted in Economic Development, Jobs, Manufacturing, Nearsourcing, Reshoring, Taxes/Regulations, Training | No Comments »

Free Trade is the source of our Trade Deficit and National debt

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2014

We all like to get something for free, so free trade sounds good. The question is: do we even have free trade? No, we do not. What we call free trade isn’t “free,” and it isn’t “good,” at least for most Americans. At best, it benefits large, multinational global corporations that have manufacturing facilities located in other countries. At its worst, it is the primary source of our trade deficit and loss of good paying manufacturing jobs, leading to an escalation of our national debt.

Brian Sullivan, Director of Sales, Marketing and Communications of the Tooling, Manufacturing & Technologies Association says, “We should rename ‘free trade’ because it isn’t free and it isn’t fair. Since it’s trade that’s regulated in favor of multinational special interest groups, why don’t we call it for what it is: How about ‘rigged market trade’ or ‘turn your back on your fellow countrymen trade’ or ‘throw American workers out on the street trade.’”

For more than the first 150 years of its history, the United States was a protectionist country in order to protect its fledgling manufacturing industries and then gain preeminence as an industrial nation in the 20th century.

After World War II, the U.S. switched from protectionism to free trade in order to rebuild the economies of Europe and Japan through the Marshall Plan and bind the economies of the non-Communist world to the United States for geopolitical reasons.

To accomplish these objectives, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was negotiated during the UN Conference on Trade and Employment, reflecting the failure of negotiating governments to create a proposed International Trade Organization. Originally signed by 23 countries at Geneva in 1947, GATT became the most effective instrument in the massive expansion of world trade in the second half of the 20th century.

GATT’s most important principle was trade without discrimination, in which member nations opened their markets equally to one another. Once a country and one of its trading partners agreed to reduce a tariff, that tariff cut was automatically extended to all GATT members. GATT also established uniform customs regulations and sought to eliminate import quotas. By 1995, when the World Trade Organization replaced GATT, 125 nations had signed its agreements, governing 90 percent of world trade.

In 1994, GATT was updated to include new obligations upon its signatories. One of the most significant changes was the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO.) The 75 existing GATT members and the European Community became the founding members of the WTO on January 1, 1995. The other 52 GATT members rejoined the WTO in the following two years, the last being Congo in 1997. Since the founding of the WTO, a number of non-GATT members have joined, and there are now 157 members, including China. The main countries still outside it are Iran, North Korea, and some nations in Central Asia and North Africa.

A major benefit for GATT and WTO members was the reduction or elimination of tariffs. However, while the U. S. and other member countries complied with this provision, over the years, the other 156 members have replaced their tariffs with Value Added Taxes (VAT), which range from a low of 10% to a high of 24%, averaging 17%. The U. S. is the only member country that doesn’t have a VAT.

A VAT is a border adjustable consumption tax on goods and services. This means that virtually all of our trading partners tax our exports with their VATs, when our goods cross into their country, and rebate their VATs when their companies export. VATs are essentially a tariff by another name. Our trade agreements, such as NAFTA, CAFTA, and KORUS do not address VATs, and the WTO rules allow VATs. This means that U. S. companies are at a disadvantage in the global marketplace, so that so-called free trade has become “unfair trade” for U. S. companies.

According to Alan Uke’s book, Buying Back America, the United States now has a trade deficit with 88 countries. Of course, some deficits are small, but some are enormous, such as China. Our top six trading partners are: Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, Germany, and South Korea. These six countries represent 64% of our total trade deficit, but China alone represents 46% of the U. S. trade deficit of $688.4 billion. Our 2013 trade deficit with China was $318.4 billion, and we are on track to equal that in 2014.

Some may claim that we are still the leader in advanced technology products, but this is no longer true. The U. S. has been running a trade deficit in these products since 2002, which has grown to an astonishing average of $90 billion per year since 2010.

So how do our trade deficits add to the national debt? One way is that many products, especially consumer products, which were previously made in the U. S., are now made in China or other Asian countries, so we are importing these products instead of exporting them to other countries. The offshoring of manufacturing of so many products has resulted in the loss 5.8 million American manufacturing jobs and the closure of over 57,000 of manufacturing firms. These American workers and companies paid taxes that provided revenue to our government, so now we have less tax revenue and pay out benefits to unemployed workers, resulting in an escalating national debt.

Let us consider whether or not our most recent trade agreements have been beneficial to the U. S. The Korea U. S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) went into effect on Mach 2012. The Office of the U. S. Trade Representative for the Obama Administration touts, “Since the Korea agreement went into effect, U.S. exports to Korea are up for our manufactured goods, including autos, exports are up for a wide range of our agricultural products, and exports are up for our services.” However, the reality is that our imports continued to exceed our exports, and the U. S. trade deficit with Korea jumped from -$13.62 billion in 2011 to -$20.67 billion in 2013, which is a 64% increase in only one full year.

The U. S. has fared better with CAFTA-DR, the Central America-Dominican Republic trade agreement, which was signed on August 5, 2004. The trade balance with Costa Rica went from a plus of $188.2 million in 2005 to a deficit of $4.7 billion in 2013, but the Guatemala and Honduras trade balance went from deficits of $302 and 495 million to surpluses of $1.642 billion and $2.97 billion. The Dominican Republic trade balance stayed positive, growing from $115 million to 1.97 billion. If you balance out the deficits and surpluses, the U. S. comes out ahead for these countries.

Now we are faced with the prospects of an even more encompassing trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), for which the Obama administration has conducted negotiations behind closed doors through the offices of U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk without any involvement with Congress.

Eleven nations have participated in the negotiations: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Japan announced its intention to join the agreement last spring. Because the TPP is intended as a “docking agreement,” other Pacific Rim countries could join over time, and the Philippines, Thailand, Colombia, and others have expressed interest.

What makes this agreement of even greater concern is that President Obama is seeking Fast Track Authority under the Trade Promotion Authority. Both Democrat and Republican Representatives in the House have expressed concern over delegating Congress’ constitutional authority over trade policy to the Executive Branch. I won’t repeat the points I have already made in my previous blog articles published last year on the dangers of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and granting the president Fast Track Authority; however, I urge you to read my January article, “We Must Stop Fast Track Trade Authority from Being Granted!”

Beyond stopping Fast Track Authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership from being approved, we need to focus on achieving “balanced trade” in any future trade agreements. Until we change the goal of trade agreements, we should refrain from negotiating any trade agreement. The last thing we need is to increase our trade deficit more than it already is. In addition, we need to pass legislation addressing the predatory mercantilist activities of our current trading partners, such as currency manipulation, product dumping, and government subsidies. We should consider comprehensive tax reform that includes a border adjustable tax to address the unfair advantage caused by the rebate of VAT taxes. We should enact countervailing duty laws and County of Origin labeling on all manufactured products, including food.

I urge you to call your Congressional representative and Senators now to urge them to oppose granting Fast Track Authority and approving the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.

Posted in Economy, Jobs, Manufacturing, Trade Policy | No Comments »

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Free Trade is the source of our Trade Deficit and National debt

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