American Seating Co. prepares for visit from Vice President Joe Biden
GRAND RAPIDS – American Seating Co. executive David McLaughlin had a premonition about Vice President Joe Biden’s plans to visit this Wednesday as he listened to President Barack Obama’s ringing endorsement of American manufacturing in last week’s State of the Union address.
“Once I heard the State of the Union speech, I said to my wife, ‘Uh oh. I think we’re going to get visitors,’” said the company’s vice president and sales manager with a chuckle.
American Seating is a textbook example of a manufacturer whose seating for buses, trains, stadiums and concert arenas is made entirely in the United States, McLaughlin said.
Employing nearly 500 workers, most of the 125-year-old company’s manufacturing takes place in two factories on the city’s West Side. Some assembly work is done in Grand Forks, N.D., McLaughlin said.
On Wednesday morning, Biden is expected to meet with some of the company’s employees and talk about the Obama Administration’s efforts to reward companies like American Seating that do not export jobs overseas.
According to the White House announcement, Biden will discuss with workers the administration’s plan to help American businesses by “eliminating incentives to ship jobs overseas and offering tax credits for insourcing.”
McLaughlin said his company often faces tough competition from companies that have moved their assembly processes to Mexico. That competition from foreign labor rates can make a big difference, he said.
“There are roughly 100 labor hours required to build a set of seats for a 55-passenger motor coach,” he explained. “If you multiply 100 labor hours versus the rate that is paid in Mexico City, it gets to be a real problem.”
Currently, there are no federal programs that reward American Seating for its all-American approach to production, McLaughlin said. “We just try to be as efficient as we can be,” he said.
McLaughlin said he does not expect his company will receive any direct benefit from the Obama Administration as a result of Wednesday’s visit.
While McLaughlin and other company employees are scrambling to get their factory floor ready for Biden’s visit, they believe it will be worth the effort.
“We’re very pleased to have this opportunity,” he said. “I don’t think we’d want to do it very often. But sometimes when you talk the talk, you’ve got to walk the walk.”
E-mail Jim Harger: jharger@grpress.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/JHHarger