Many small business owners – especially those with government contracts – celebrated the news on Monday that President Joe Biden had signed legislation to tighten the ‘Buy American Act’.
“Within a very short time, a much clearer message was sent and a stronger level of support,” said Marisa Fumei-Smith, president of textile manufacturer Two One Two New York, who made clothes and knitwear, but wore make personal protective equipment for local authorities and companies.
The business has grown from 60 workers at the start of the pandemic to about 400, including subcontractors working exclusively for Two One Two.
By law, companies that accept federal contracts must be fully domiciled in the US and not obtain any of their supply chains internationally. It also increases the burden of proof for businesses to argue that procuring products domestically is too expensive, and most importantly that it establishes a supervisory office.
Desperate tye
Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the industry was in crisis due to a gradual decline in manufacturing work in the US and low standards that required companies to produce locally. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that at least 7.5 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since 1980.
“There was a moment in time when each of your customers said that if you did not move your business to China, you would have no business with us,” said James Wyner, CEO of Shawmut Corp., a headquartered in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts, a textile manufacturer whose family has run the company for four generations. Although Shawmut has employees around the world, it falls within the federal classification for small businesses for the textile finishing industry.
But the pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of global supply chains. The shortage of protective equipment across the country is strongly illustrated by images of nurses using trash cans as cover. When Covid-19 struck, many textile manufacturers had the opportunity to obtain government contracts for the first time to make protective equipment.
Gabrielle Ferrara, chief operating officer of Ferrara Manufacturing in New York, worked with designers Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Donna Karan to make clothes for the pandemic. When the company switched to making masks and insulation trucks, it initially had to get materials from countries like China. “The network and those relationships do not exist, and frankly, the production lines do not exist,” she said.
Through the pandemic, she began working with larger companies, such as DuPont and Parkdale Mills, one of the largest cotton producers in the world, to procure household materials.
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“It’s more than just a relationship between sellers and materials,” she said. “There’s a real sense of community and excitement around the Made in USA product.”
During the pandemic, the supply of domestic supply chains was a boon for textile manufacturers, making them eligible for new government contracts. Fumei-Smith said two one-two contacted a Federal Emergency Management Agency contractor through an industry contact.
“Every component has to be acquired by the U.S.,” Fumei-Smith said of the federal grant requirements. “Your fabric, your threads, any finish, right down to the police bags. Any stickers, labels, cartons, pallets. Every component.”
In the first ten weeks of the pandemic, the company shipped 5 million masks. Protective equipment has become a permanent part of the business, she said. It expanded to make insulating gowns, shoes, bouffants, sleeve caps, aprons and patient blankets.
Cautious optimism
Some textile manufacturers are still concerned that Biden’s efforts to improve conditions for American manufacturers may not be enough to save it.
Kathie Leonard, CEO of Auburn Manufacturing in Mechanic Falls, Maine, oversees the production of high-heat materials used to make safety clothing for the automotive and shipbuilding industries. As a customer of the defense industry, the company did not have the same increase in government contracts as other textile manufacturers.
“I have not yet seen that kind of thing come to us,” she said. ‘The industrial sector is still fluttering.
“We are bidding on a multi-year contract that was to be awarded in October, and it has been extended,” she said. The defense contracts are expensive, she said, and although essential, many have been postponed by the pandemic.
Overall, though, Leonard is optimistic.
“It’s going to be a nice shot in the arm, to remember that we do have a lot of employees in this country who want to work, who want to make things. Let’s support them and buy the stuff that is made here,” she said. .
Hopeful prospects
For Shaffiq Rahim, president of Hi-Tech Engineering, Buy American means businesses have more support to invest in quality. Hi-Tech, based in Camarillo, California, near Los Angeles, makes aviation parts for the defense industry and commercial clients. Rahim said that when prospective clients decide to outsource projects to save money, 60 percent of the time they return to Hi-Tech Engineering. He said they often paid for products that did not meet the quality specifications.
Businesses also seem hopeful that Biden’s latest changes will mean more opportunities to create manufacturing jobs. Wyner, of Shawmut Corp., is working on a contract to replenish the Strategic National Stock with protective equipment. He was able to employ 550 people, and he hired another 100 to complete the project, which ends in a few weeks.
“We are dealing with the fact that the work is likely to disappear when our contract expires,” he said. “We want these posts to stay.”