1. Policy Issues

The NAM's policy issue work is focused in the areas of labor, employment, health care, energy, corporate finance, tax, bilateral trade, multilateral trade, export controls, technology, regulatory and infrastructure policy.^[1] The organization emphasizes four pillars that make America great: free enterprise, competitiveness, individual liberty, and equal opportunity.

The NAM releases a Manufacturing Outlook Survey every quarter. As of the second quarter of 2018, according to the NAM, 95.1% of manufacturers registered a positive outlook for their company, “the highest level recorded in the survey’s 20-year history.”^[2] The same survey found that manufacturers rated “the inability to attract and retain a quality workforce” as their top concern. President Donald Trump mentioned the NAM’s survey in an event at the White House in April 2018.^[3]

The NAM’s Manufacturing Institute is a 501(c)3 dedicated to developing a modern manufacturing workforce to help manufacturers get skilled, qualified and productive workers to remain competitive. The Institute sponsors Manufacturing Day on the first Friday of October, a nation-wide event for manufacturers to host students, parents, and policy-leaders and “address common misperceptions about manufacturing.”

In 2017, the NAM launched the Manufacturers’ Accountability Project (MAP), a campaign run through the Manufacturers’ Center for Legal Action (MCLA) to combat frivolous, politically-motivated lawsuits against energy manufacturers. As of August 2018, three of those lawsuits have been dismissed from court.^[4]

According to NAM, manufacturing employs nearly 12 million workers, contributes more than $2.25 trillion to the U.S. economy annually, is the largest driver of economic growth in the nation and accounts for the lion's share of private sector research and development.^[5]

1.1. Legislation

NAM supported the EPS Service Parts Act of 2014 (H.R. 5057; 113th Congress), a bill that would exempt certain external power supplies from complying with standards set forth in a final rule published by the United States Department of Energy in February 2014.^[6][7] The United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce describes the bill as a bill that "provides regulatory relief by making a simple technical correction to the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act to exempt certain power supply (EPS) service and spare parts from federal efficiency standards."^[8]

2. Board of Directors

The NAM's Board of Directors includes Chairman David Farr, CEO of Emerson Electric Company, President Jay Timmons, CEO of NAM; and Vice Chair of the Board David T. Seaton, Chairman and CEO, Fluor Corporation, among others.^[9]

3. History

NAM was founded by Thomas P. Egan, late President of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce and head of the J.A. Fay and Egan Co., woodworking and machinery company, not long after reading an editorial in the magazine "Dixie," out of Atlanta, Georgia, during the depression of 1894. This editorial urged the manufacturers of the time to organize and work together to improve business conditions nationally. Under Egan's leadership, organization began, and a group was created; they called themselves the "Big 50"; he invited them, and asked them to invite others, to Cincinnati. On Jan 25, 1895, in the Oddfellows Temple, where 583 manufacturers attended, NAM was created.^[10] "The U.S. was in the midst of a deep recession and many of the nation's manufacturers saw a strong need to export their products in other countries. One of the NAM's earliest efforts was to call for the creation of the U.S. Department of Commerce".^[11] The organization's first president was Thomas Dolan of Philadelphia^[12] (not, as erroneously listed in some sources, Samuel P. Bush).

The early history of NAM was marked by frank verbal attacks on labor. In 1903, then-president David MacLean Parry^[13] delivered a speech at its annual convention which argued that unions' goals would result in "despotism, tyranny, and slavery." Parry advocated the establishment of a great national anti-union federation under the control of the NAM, and the NAM responded by initiating such an effort.^[14]

In an address at its 1911 convention, NAM president John Kirby, Jr. proclaimed, "The American Federation of Labor is engaged in an open warfare against Jesus Christ and his cause."^[15]

The NAM also encouraged the creation and propagation of a network of local anti-union organizations, many of which took the name Citizens' Alliance.^[16] In October 1903 the local Citizens' Alliance groups were united by a national called the Citizens' Industrial Alliance of America.^[17]

NAM, in the late 1930s, used one of the earliest versions of a modern multi-faceted public relations campaign to promote the benefits of capitalism and to combat the policies of President Roosevelt.^[18] NAM made efforts to undermine organized labor in the United States before the New Deal.^[19]

NAM lobbied successfully for the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act to restrict unions' power.^[20]

The advent of commercial television led to the NAM's own 15-minute television program, “Industry on Parade”,^[21] which aired from 1950–1960.^[22]

4. Presidents of NAM

• Thomas Dolan
• David Maclean Parry
• John Kirby, Jr
• Clinton L. Bardo (1934-1935)
• Henning Webb Prentis Jr.
• Sandy Trowbridge (1980-1989)
• Jerry Jasinowski (1990-2004)
• John Engler (2004 - 2011)
• Jay Timmons (2011 -)

5. Chairmen of NAM

• Charles R. Sligh, Jr.
• Stanley Gault
• Michael Campbell
• David Farr

6. Affiliates

The NAM has one affiliate. According to its website,^[23] the Manufacturing Institute is the 501(c) 3 affiliate of the National Association of Manufacturers. The Manufacturing Institute describes its priorities as the development of a world-class manufacturing workforce, the growth of individual U.S. manufacturing companies and the expansion of the manufacturing sector in regional economies. The Manufacturing Institute is the authority on the attraction, qualification, and development of world-class manufacturing talent.^[24]