TRADE GROUP ROLES
With so much at stake, industry trade groups tend to be more vocal during political campaigns.
In June, the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA) laid out a "policy playbook" for Congress that addresses the future of U.S. high-tech innovation. It makes several recommendations for legislative changes it believes would boost American innovation, which it calls "our most prized intellectual asset."
The EIA also recently sent letters to Congressional appropriators who support full funding in the 2005 budget for the Advanced Technology Program (ATP). Administered by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the ATP is designed to accelerate the commercialization of new technologies as well as encourage industry investment in long-term, high-risk R&D. Why the letters? Simple. President Bush's FY 2005 budget calls for zeroing-out ATP funding.
A technology brief issued by Senator John Kerry says the ATP should continue to be funded because it "provides support for projects that have high-payoff potential but often cannot get private sector support." About half of the project research areas funded by the ATP since its inception in 1990 have involved electronics, computer hardware, communications, and information technology. "The research that the ATP encourages is the foundation for future jobs and growth in this country," EIA President Dave McCurdy wrote to Congress.
The 700 member companies of the Telecommunications Industry Association have focused on broadband deployment as the critical issue for the communications industry and as a major stimulator of the national and global economies. Its overriding objective is to ensure that all Americans have access to current high-speed Internet access technologies in the immediate future and to next-generation broadband services by 2007.
IEEE-USA, which represents about 235,000 U.S.-based engineers, has hounded Congress and the Administration for years on several public policy issues. They include H-1B and L-1 visas, offshore outsourcing, intellectual-property (IP) protection, medical technology and health, education, R&D, energy, the environment, and retirement security.
In July, IEEE-USA sent President Bush, Senator Kerry, and Ralph Nader five questions:
1) What would you do as president to help high-tech professionals displaced by offshore outsourcing of engineering and information technology get to work? How would you ensure that America remains the world leader in new technology as cutting-edge research and development and design work moves overseas?
2) What are your priorities for federal investments in R&D, and what do you think is the appropriate level of federal funding for R&D? Specifically, do you believe there is a need for increased federal investment in R&D, and in what areas of science and engineering should that be focused?
3) Given that the unfunded corporate pension liability in the U.S. now exceeds $250 billion and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. is operating almost $10 billion in the red, what would you do as president to ensure the security of pensions earned by American workers?
4) With more and more personal information, consumer habits, financial and medical records, and so forth now collected in databases and accessible worldwide, what do you believe is an appropriate expectation of privacy by individuals? What steps would you propose as president to ensure the privacy of personal information?
5) Despite high levels of high-tech unemployment and underemployment, corporate lobbyists continue to argue that there is a skills shortage, cite recent declines in U.S. engineering/computer graduates as evidence of a future worker shortfall, and ask for increases in the number of H-1B visas for entry of skilled non-immigrant guest workers into the U.S. What do you believe is the appropriate policy response to ensure that the U.S. maintains a strong and competitive high-tech workforce?
The 3000-member companies of the AeA (formerly known by the full name of American Electronics Association) have focused more on issues of interest to their members' top management. For example, they recently praised the U.S. House of Representatives for passing the Stock Option Accounting Reform Act (H.R. 35740).
"The overwhelming bipartisan vote shows that the House understands the serious economic implications of expensing options and the negative impact expensing will have on American workers who are granted stock options by their companies," says John Palafoutas, the AeA's senior vice president for domestic policy. The AeA is now asking the Senate Banking Committee to conduct hearings on this bill.
Unfortunately, with more than 10 trade groups lobbying separately for the industry (rarely do they work together), it's difficult to get anything accomplished. In fact, by most industry standards, high-tech is only now beginning to take politics seriously. Last year, according to public records, Fortune 500 technology companies spent nearly double the amount on lobbying as they did in 1998.
The same is true of industry companies, many of which have their own agendas. Several electronics industry stalwarts, such as Microsoft and Cisco Systems, didn't start hiring individual lobbyists until the mid-1990s. Others, including Qualcomm and semiconductor equipment maker Applied Materials, only recently joined the pack.
According to U.S. Senate Office of Public Records documents, Microsoft topped major technology lobbying spenders in 2003 at $8.7 million. Intel was second at $6.9 million, slightly more than IBM's $6.8 million. Right now, the hot issues for these companies are taxes, digital copyrights and restrictions, patent reform, and foreign workers.
"We are living in a rapidly changing world," says Ken Lyons, an Agilent Technologies engineer. "The technology that we saw as enabling a life of telecommuting has also enabled our jobs to be performed by less expensive workers in distant parts of the world. Engineers need to find ways to make themselves more needed at home to avoid more sad unemployment stories."
A design engineer who asked to remain anonymous says most of the engineers he deals with consider themselves Republicans because they believe Republicans are fiscally responsible. "But look at our current debt," he says. He expects rank and file engineers to vote Democrat because the party is more likely to make money available to higher education and R&D, both of which would help promote engineering. "They are also likely to see that jobs stay in the U.S. Job security is important, but the idea is past its time. There is no longer any such thing."
Despite the negative tone when discussing politics, most of the survey's respondents say they vote regularly, especially in national elections. But they profess minimum interest in actually participating in the election process. As Carl Damm of LeCroy put it, "I am active in politics in my living room, yelling at my television."