Page 20 - MetalForming January/February 2022

to present us with all of the pertinent facts, week in and week out—para- mount to our success.
"The D.C. team is extremely busy, but always takes the time to treat us as individuals,” Hopp continues. “Dur- ing the height of the pandemic, the team prepared Friday presentations for all PMA members, and then throughout the week fielded calls and emails and successfully solved our indi- vidual issues."
Helping to Fortify the Material and Workforce Supply Chains
Also through its One Voice advocacy team, PMA continues to engage with trade policymakers and members of Congress to find ways to increase the supply of steel and other materials. Additionally, as a founding member of the Coalition for American Metal Man- ufacturers and Users (CAMMU), PMA is actively lobbying to end the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs that have been in place since 2018.
Among its successes:
• Suspended, for 5 yr., potential tar- iffs on European Union (EU) copper- based alloys
• Lobbied the Administration to negotiate lifting the steel tariffs on the EU
• Worked to introduce a U.S. Senate bill to reform the Section 232 tariff process
• Convinced the White House to keep tariffs on Chinese imports injuring PMA members
• Secured language in a bill to sup- port Trade Adjustment Assistance for Firms.
“I met John Guzik in 2002, working on a campaign for a candidate for the Michigan U.S. Congressional District 11,” recalls Wes Smith, president of E&E Manufacturing and past PMA chair. “That was the year President George Bush had the bright idea to enact Section 201 Steel Tariffs, which turned the entire automotive-manu-
facturing industry on its head. E&E hired Guzik and his partners to lobby against the tariffs, as they were unfairly costing E&E $6 million/yr., mostly in unrecoverable steel increases.
“Guzik and his team knew that by joining forces with PMA, they would partner with an organization with the firepower to fight these politically motivated tariffs,” Smith continues. “The value of the lobbying team, which later evolved into The Franklin Part- nership and Bracewell, and One Voice, became obvious to all as we made vis- its to Capitol Hill, had op-eds pub- lished in nationally recognized peri- odicals and held other lobbing activities. This culminated with PMA getting a seat at the ITC hearings, which resulted in the lifting of the tar- iffs in December of 2003.”
Afterwards, PMA leadership recog- nized the need for continued ‘boots- on-the-ground’ representation in D.C., Smith adds, “as well as educating the public in manufacturing issues—as our government impacts our businesses even more than our customers. The Franklin Partnership and Bracewell excel in this mission and are needed more today than ever before.”
Of course, the need for lobbying and for educating the public continues, as evidenced by a much more recent example. Early in 2019, PMA activated its One Voice team as the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) initiated a Sec- tion 301 investigation to enforce its rights in sparing copper alloys from a list of products subject to tariffs ema- nating from a trade dispute between the United States and EU over govern- ment subsidies for the aviation indus- try. Without action by the One Voice team—from the announcement of a threat in May 2019 to a successful res- olution in October 2019—tariffs on these imported alloys could have dev- astated many metal formers due to a lack of a domestic U.S. supply. Ulti- mately, in February 2020 the USTR
released its revisions to the aviation tariffs and, in a victory for the industry, copper alloys were excluded from the list.
“I am most appreciative that, through the efforts of PMA and the One Voice team, we were able to get to the right place, in front of the right people and at the right time,” says Dan Kendall, president of PMA member company ABC Metals. “The speedy support within hours of notification of the tariff threat, through communi- cation with PMA membership and oth- ers with the same shared interest, was critical to our initial win.”
Adds Charles Bernard, president of PMA member company Eagle Metals: “Tariffs on copper alloys would have been damaging to my company and other metal formers, and our cus- tomers. The One Voice team devised and executed an effective advocacy strategy that helped ensure that our voices were heard by our elected offi- cials and policymakers.”
When it Comes to Workforce Development Challenges
...the One Voice team recently helped secure more than $1 billion for job training and technical education; lobbied Congress for new language in COVID-relief legislation that expanded training funds in the Workforce Invest- ment and Opportunity Act for e-Learn- ing; and lobbied for the creation of industry-recognized apprenticeship programs.
Other successes include:
• Passed the National Apprentice- ship Act in the U.S. House
• Filed formal comments on barriers to work-based learning opportunities • Lobbied to pass the College Trans-
parency Act
• Secured an additional $6 billion
for registered apprenticeship expansion • Included in the appropriations bill a $50-million Perkins Basic State Grant
increase
18 MetalForming/January-February 2022
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