In early June, members of PPAI and professionals across the country took our message to the US Congress.
I was asked along with another 50 or so members from across the country to visit the nation's capital, participate in pre-planning meetings and spend the day of June 7th visiting with Representatives and Senators, as well as their staffs to talk about promotional products industry.
The message was pretty similar that we were bringing to our representatives as we have had in the last 12 years while we've been visiting Congress.
Participating this year in our group was Thomas Dalis, from N. CA based Supplier Timbuk2; Heather Comerford from Distributor 1338 Tryon in Portland and myself representing Washington State.
Regional members from across the country joined in as we visited with staff to share our message about how Promotional Products Work and help to keep over 500,000 people employed in our $25+ Billion industry across the country.
Our position, on the C.O.O.L. Act that is proposed back in Congress to bring additional labeling for imported products. This is a prime example of how we as an industry are trying to stay ahead of the messaging as these proposed laws come into being. This proposal is one that would bring much more responsibility for labeling and reporting, than we now must do for imported products. We, as an industry are trying to counsel our representatives to not include this extra burden of documentation and reporting, to cause more work for our small businesses throughout our industry. 98% of our companies in our industry are small businesses.
Additional talking points that we had in our meetings was our overall discussion on how Promotional Products Work! - to promote businesses in organizations throughout the country, in addition to our stance on the importance of independent contractors, as well as the strength of our global supply chain, how important it is to all of our professionals.
We would like to thank PPAI and their staff to support us with all the messaging and information that are regional association members were able to take back to Congress and continue our open discussion.
For more information, please visit the following link where you can find more information on our industry message that we continue to take to Congress:
https://ppai.org/advocacy/legislative-action-watch/
Mark Shinn, MAS
Incentives West
PMANC Past President
