By Mare Allen

Another year is about to end and what kind of member have you been? Did you come to the dinner meetings, did you attend a seminar, are you working toward your C.P.M., did you serve on a committee, are you an officer, are you a board member, or do you just go home after work?

Enriching our lives through education, honing a skill or gaining that feeling of accomplishment is what we who are active with the Association gain from being active. We know that the time we spend on a committee, going to dinner meetings, helping out on miscellaneous activities, and being active on the board is time well spent that will aid us in our professional and personal lives. There are committee chairs and officer positions that will be open for next year Do you know of some good speakers, or want to spend time with members and enhance their knowledge about the purchasing and materials management profession? The positions of Educational Resources, Marketing, Programs and Membership are always in need of outgoing and motivated people who want to network and bring excitement into the Association.

Communication will need creative people to make a difference informing others about our Association through the Newsletter and media. These are just a few of the positions open, just ask any officer or board member about these committees.

You can learn how these positions function through the District I workshop, which will be held in July 28 and 29, 2000 in Tacoma, WA this year. The trip will be paid for by the association and offers a great opportunity to meet and network with many people from your profession. The outcome of your life is dependent on how you spent each moment. Don’t waste a second, get active now! Your Association can not be successful without you.

By Scott Oldendorph, C.P.M.

E-Commerce or electronic commerce over the past few years has become another term that we all have had to learn in our ever changing vocabulary. We have seen an explosion of companies entering the dot com industry and many making it rich with "IPO" initial public offers on Wall Street and others failing without the infusion of venture capital money. With the wild west mentality in the e-commerce industry to go on the web to do their marketing, sales and delivery of services, one starts to wonder what laws are already out there or are being developed to govern this new industry.

On May 10 at 7:00, NAPM-SA will have Michael McNulty from the Brown & Bain law firm address these growing issues. Michael’s job of finding traditional laws that can be applied to the world of e-commerce has made him an authority on a topic that often appears to govern itself without law. One of the most common issues he faces is sales tax and e-commerce. Currently there is little that can be done to enforce sales tax collection and many internet buyers are getting around paying tax on a sale. Close behind that is junk e-mail and computer hacking.

Michael started accumulating his knowledge by getting a BA at Yale University and a JD at the University of Arizona. From there Michael became the staff attorney in 1977 for the US House of Representatives subcommittee on Energy and the Environment and for their committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. In 1978 with the US Congress he was the Congressional Liaison to the Office of Technology Assessment and Administrative Assistant to Congressman Morris Udall. In 1981 Michael became the Director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources Tucson. Finally in 1984 he became a partner of Streich, Lang, Weeks and Cardon and General Counsel to the Space Biosphere Venture in 1989.

Currently Michael is a managing partner of the Brown and Bain law firm here in Tucson. In 1999 Arizona’s Governor Jane Hull appointed Michael as legal representative on the Arizona Legislator’s Study Committee on Internet Privacy, Jurisdiction, Regulation and Taxation. Michael also serves as General Counsel to RightFax a Tucson software company and represents StarNet, Southern Arizona’s largest internet service provider, DesertNet an alternative on-line newsweekly and a number of telecommunication providers including E-Spire and Cox Arizona Telecommunications. In not-for-profit foundations he represents ITASA Information Technologies Association of Southern Arizona and the Native Seeds/Search.

Come join us and learn the law in e-commerce, this is our future.

Name________________________________________________________________________________________

Company____________________________________________________#Attending________________________

Phone#_______________________________________________________________________________________

Preferred
Entree(s)_____________________________________________________________________________________

NAPM Reorganization Coming

By Ralph L. Long, C.P.M.

NAPM has reviewed the national organization structure over the past few years in what was called the Governance Study. I have addressed this study in numerous articles, it was the subject of a Summer Workshop, and it has been in various NAPM publications and discussed at several NAPM-SA dinner meetings. All that may have been taken as "so what" type information but now its here! The National vote in February was 25,549 yes and 18,295 no's. Not a mandate but a clear quorum. The new organization is scheduled to go into effect May 2001. There will be little effect at the local level except national governance will be intrusted to the new organization with very little input from the affiliates. The District organization and the D.N.A.'s go away. In their place will be a Region with representatives selected from the affiliates. However the Regions will have no governance responsibilities. They are being established to provide training at the Summer Workshop. The topic at the recent District 1 Council Meeting was how the transition would take place and the concern that the affiliates would interact with the National only on an individual basis and would not have a method to network with the other District affiliates. The general consensus was to continue to have a representative of each affiliate meet two or three times a year. This would afford the opportunity to keep the open line of communication with the affiliates in the Region. This would have no standing as far as National is concerned but maybe some political clout due to our numbers (over 8,000 members). This is only one of the many challenges that face the new Board and Officers. Let them know your opinions. I hope National will be looking to the membership for suggestions and direction on how the new organization is formed.

Monique M. Fontenot            Tostinos Coffee Roasters
Purchasing Manager

Doug M. Jones                      Bombardier Aerospace
Sr. Buyer

Priscilla Kadi                           Raytheon Systems
Subcontracts Manager

Kevin Kleckner                      Raytheon Systems
Commodity Manager

Dorothy P. Parsley                  Canyon Ranch Resort & Health Spa
Sr. Buyer

Darlene J. Rock                      Tohono O’odham Nation
Purchasing Agent

Evenlyn J. Williams                 MarketFusion
Commodity Analyst

Golf Tournament                                       May 5, 2000

NAPM Dinner Meeting                          May 10, 2000

Board Meeting                                         May 25, 2000

Satellite Seminar                                          Jun 8, 2000
"Cost Reduction and Cost Avoidance Strategies and Opportunities"

C.P.M. Review Module 3                       June 17, 2000

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR WORKING CONDITIONS AT OFFSHORE SUPPLIER’S FACILITIES?

Much has been said and more written about the responsibility of U.S. companies for the working conditions and wages at offshore suppliers facilities. Human rights advocate groups are critical of American companies who fail to ensure that their offshore suppliers enforce a Code of Conduct comparable to their own with respect to the treatment of their employees.

This makes good sense when the you consider the impact of adverse publicity which may result if a company sources from a foreign supplier who operates a "sweatshop" and whose workers are underpaid relative to U.S. wage scales. This is particularly true if the product produced overseas is sold directly to the general public. We have seen this in the athletic footwear and garment industries among others. In NAPM's Purchasing Today (November 1997 p. 48) editor Julie Murphree describes what is termed third-party ethics and observes that Marianne M. Jennings, professor of legal and ethical studies at the College of Business at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, says shareholders and the public want to see some accountability - the legal and ethics community calls it "third-party ethics."

"Says Jennings, "Third-party ethics seeks to hold purchasers responsible for the conduct of their suppliers and suppliers responsible for the use of their products by purchasers. Third-party ethics imposes duties upon those with market clout to supervise those who wish to do business with them. In this era of social responsibility, it's not enough for a company to have and enforce its own code of ethics. Companies are also held accountable for the practices and ethics of their suppliers and outsourcing firms.'"

There have been some notable successes in carrying out programs to better conditions for workers in offshore supplier's facilities. Murphree points to Levi Strauss & Company, The Gap, Nordstrom, Inc. and L.L. Bean as examples. Unfortunately, most small companies seeking to source overseas do not have the "clout" needed to effect much change. My experiences in "third world" countries has revealed practices which are detrimental to workers over which the U. S. purchaser can exert little or no control. For example, in one Caribbean country a company was prohibited by law from paying its workers more than $1.30 per day. Any business operator who violated this edict risked imprisonment. We did what we could to help the workers by giving them staple foodstuffs (rice, beans sugar, coffee, etc.). The contractor provided sanitary conditions for his workers, which were infinitely better than those available in the worker's homes. The alternative of not doing business in such a country would have only harmed the workers and the $1.30 per day was far better than the alternative of not working at all. Most of these employees supported an extended family on their wages and free foodstuffs.

In plants operated in several Latin American countries my "Fortune 100" employer paid substantially more than the government-ordained minimum wage in order to maintain a stable work force, and additionally, provided free lunches, an on-site nursery, special break periods for mothers to feed their children, an on-site medical clinic for all employees and free bus transportation to and from the worker’s homes. These employee benefits were not unique as most large U. S. companies who operated plants overseas furnished similar benefits.

Overseas suppliers would undoubtedly be willing to improve worker conditions if the U.S. customer makes this a requirement and was willing to pay for it. The question is how much would the supplier have to increase his prices to cover the added costs of such improvements and would this make the landed price of the product too high to warrant offshore sourcing. The objective of enforcing offshore suppliers to adopt a Code of Conduct relative to the treatment of their workers certainly is well-intended but consideration must be given to how much a foreign supplier can do given the governmental controls under which he must work.