Effective Monday, April 1, 2013, the National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), the National Textile Association (NTA) and the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition (AMTAC) have formally merged into one broad organization with the aim of strengthening the U.S. textile industry's voice in dealings with federal policy makers.
The merged organization, which comprises 149 member textile companies and suppliers, will operate under the NCTO banner, with NCTO president Cass Johnson continuing in that role, and will be housed at NCTO's current Washington location and will retain NCTO's website: ncto.org. The governing structure will include a Board of Directors and four internal councils based on the production chain, including the Fiber Council, Yarn Council, Fabric & Home Products Manufacturers Council, and Industry Support Council.
NCTO notes the following benefits will result from the merger of the three organizations:
the capability to present a united front to Congressional members and Executive Branch agencies on critical policy issues, particularly the ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement negotiations; a more focused opportunity to properly brand the U.S. textile industry as an integral component of America's 21st-century economy by better highlighting its substantial economic contribution, particularly in the area of employment, its high-tech products, its cutting edge manufacturing processes, and its status as a globally competitive exporter; the expansion of industry focus to more fully cover an array of critical issues beyond those that involve trade, to include issues such as regulatory and government contracting matters; increased staffing to do more lobbying, public relations and grassroots activity; and a better capability to identify and support major governmental customer needs such as those of the U.S. military.
Additional benefits include improved structural efficiency of textile industry representation owing to the consolidation and maximization of each organization's strengths; improved utilization of financial resources owing to one unified effort rather than separate duplicate efforts; and an improved system to recruit new members among U.S. textile companies that are not currently associated with any textile trade group.
"This is an important step for the U.S. textile industry and the hundreds of thousands of workers we employ," said NCTO Chairman Bill Jasper, Unifi Inc. "The industry has agreed to establish a completely unified trade association to represent its interests in Washington. The result will be a much stronger and more aggressive voice, with a wider geographical and political reach, on the critical matters that face our industry."
"The merger will give our industry the ability to quickly vet and react to fast moving policy developments in Washington," said AMTAC Co-Chairman Jeff Price, Milliken & Company. "More importantly, it will allow the industry to better develop a positive and proactive agenda that properly reflects the enormous contribution our industry makes to our national economy and our national defense.
"The creation of this merged organization will allow the domestic textile industry to more quickly and effectively address the wide range of federal policy developments of importance to the over 1.5 million workers in the United States whose jobs are either directly or indirectly tied to this critical manufacturing sector," said NTA Chairman and AMTAC Co-Chairman George Shuster, Cranston Print Works.
