In which 30 thousand small manufacturers square off against mom, apple pie, and Ralph Nader

Contrary to popular reports, manufacturing is not dead in the United States. Up until the recent troubles (the recession, not the Bush Administration), we were making as much steel and other stuff as ever. I'm too jazzed to go looking up the stats - try the Statistical Abstract.

According to the 2002 Census, there were about 40,000 cut & sew apparel manufacturers in the US. Of those, approximately 68% were small businesses. You are a manufacturer if you make or cause something to be made (i.e. contract it out). That's about 30,000 small manufacturers, small being anything from sole proprietorship (employing yourself) to 19 employees.

In August of 2008, in the wake of many high profile recalls of stuff made in China, Congress passed and President Bush (yes, Bush, not Obama, contrary to some rumors (really!)) signed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). It has some very laudable goals: eliminate phthalates and cut lead to trace levels in all children's goods. Children in this context are anyone 12 and under. This means clothing, toys, electronics, strollers, books, school supplies, school science projects, astroturf (yep), etc. Sounds pretty sweet, huh?

Well, there are some details. You can't just not use lead or phthalates. You can't just point out that you are using undyed organic hemp and wooden toggles. No, you must prove that you are lead- and phthalate-free. How? Well, at $600-2400 per item, you ship it off to a certified testing lab. Plus, it's destructive testing, so kiss 1-12 samples of whatever it is goodbye. Also, you need to make sure that it is a representative lot, so no more repurposing of used clothes. Also, you need to provide this General Compliance Certificate (GCC) to anyone downstream who wants it. At any time. And be sure you can trace it by lot. Also, you may have to put up a bond in case they want to recall your product so that they know you can cover the cost of the recall.

Now, there's something you may not know about apparel manufacture (and you still won't know at the end of this paragraph because I'm simplifying the heck out of it). You start by developing about 20 styles and see what gets bought. Once buyers buy on the strength of the sample, you order the material and start sewing. The CPSIA testing has to be done on the final product (unit testing), not the inputs (component testing). So even though you are using the same organic cotton cloth and 5 different dyes and 3 different buttons, you can't get by with doing 8 tests (the cloth in 5 colors plus tests on each button). Nope, you have to do testing on 20 different styles x 5 different colors = 100 tests. Of which only 5 styles will ultimately go to market. That's a minimum of $60,000 just for the testing, and you haven't even started to sell yet.

By the way, size does not matter in the eyes of this law. Haynes T-shirts? Yes, they have to test. Grandpa's handmade toys that he sells on E-bay? Yep, in fact E-bay and Etsy are already noting that legal compliance is a requirement of their user terms of use. Also, manufacturing location does not matter - whether you make in or contract to China, Los Angeles, or Lancaster County, you have to test.

"But I make handmade dresses from down from angel's wings, blessed by two rabbis, the pope, an imam, and a guru!" Too bad, where's that GCC?

One further thing: On February 10, if you don't have the GCC, you are selling illegally. So that date has been declared National Bankruptcy Day. You can also follow this in the forums and blog posts at fashion-incubator.com.

So, you would think that Congress would realize they made a huge mistake. The successful small businesses in the industry are absolutely in agreement that lead and phthalates are bad things: many of them are moms who got disgusted with the mass-produced junk in Wal-Mart and went into business with a sewing machine, some good ideas, and a determination to to things right, to be the good guys. But no, Congress doesn't even know there's a problem looming. Congress spent 3 hours and 20 minutes debating HR 4040 and whatever the Senate bill was. 3 hours and 20 minutes to debate a 62 page bill. There was one vote cast against it - Brownie points for whoever can guess who it was without look.... ah, hell, it was Ron Paul. Duh.

In fact, Congress is completely clueless about what is coming. In fact, some of them are pissed that the CPSC legal counsel advised that whereas Congress clearly intended the lead standards to go into effect right away (making your inventory worthless), they did not intend that for the phthalate ban. They think they should eat their inventory, which was legal prior to the law's passage, and would probably pass testing afterwards, but on 10 Feb 2009 will not have a GCC. And leading the way for them is Saint Nader's PIRG. NRDC is chiming in, too. They have been planting stories in newspapers, using their annual review of toys to lead parents into thinking that most if not all toys are simply die-cast lead with a sheen of phthalate gloss. Those stories tell you only that phthalates may be on the shelves for years to come. They don't tell you anything about the testing, about the certificates, about the cost, about the effect on small businesses and one-man or one-woman shops. They might as well also point out that dihydrogen monoxide is still legal for all the rigor and truthiness they are applying to this story.

Incidentally, you might want to stock up on interesting children's clothing. This time next year, it will all be the same style and the same color.