PEI Journal - 3rd Quarter 2019

Parity for Main Street Employers: ;ghts for pass-through business parity. Website: mainstreetemployers.org

Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW): opposes organized labor’s “Card Check” legislation.

Employers’ Health Care Clearinghouse: discusses monthly status and progress of health care legislative and regulatory initiatives.

Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity: opposes new regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act ( white-collar exemptions from the overtime payment requirement).

Family Business Estate Tax Coalition: advocates for permanent, full death tax repeal.

Marketplace Fairness Coalition: advocates for state sales and uses taxes for online sales.

Tax Relief Coalition: helped enact 2001, 2003 tax cuts.

U.S. wholesale-distribution is about 120% larger in sales volume than U.S. retail trade, Van Dongen said, because half of what the U.S. sells is not for resale.

“It’s a huge industry,” Van Dongen said. “You can go through your entire life without having a single thought about it, right? There are business intermediaries. They buy from businesses, sell to businesses — typically don’t trade in their own company name as a brand — and so it’s kind of an invisible industry.

“But the next time you’re driving on the highway or in a
shopping center, in the back, just look for trucks. Look for
vans. Look for big over the road trucks. Look for the word
‘supply’ quite frequently on the door of the cab, and that’s a
distributor. And we have the best distribution system in the
entire world in this country, which is why when you walk
into a store to buy something, you absolutely expect it to be
there. And if it isn’t there, you don’t come back. You know
how unusual that is in this world?”
Long called Van Dongen “the face of wholesale distribu-
tion.” Van Dongen has served as NAW president and CEO
since 1981.

NAW’s constituency is a vital link in the supply chain among manufacturers, retailers and commercial, institutional and governmental end users. Distribution ;rms vary widely in size, employ more than 5. 9 million U.S. workers and account for 6% of the overall economy. Wholesaler-distributors are publicly held or closely held family-owned companies that have served their local communities and regions for decades and, in some cases, for more than a century.