CONGRESS Amendment removes fast food from manufacturing equation

Employment in food service has shown gains recently.
WASHINGTON -- Congressman Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, says an amendment he offered to require honest accounting of manufacturing employment was included in 2005 omnibus spending legislation.
The Economic Report of the President issued by President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers in February considered the possibility that workers at fast-food restaurants might be appropriately classified as manufacturing workers.
The president's report asked, "When a fast-food restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a 'service' or is it combining inputs to 'manufacture' a product?"
Jobs lost
America lost millions of manufacturing jobs under Bush, including more than 170,000 in Ohio. Employment in the food service and hospitality sector has shown some recent gains.
Critics of what was dubbed the "McManufacturing" proposal charged that the Bush administration hoped to pad lagging manufacturing employment figures by expanding the definition of manufacturing.
Brown offered the amendment in September, during House floor debate of the Transportation-Treasury appropriations bill, which funds the CEA. It prohibits the CEA from including fast-food workers in manufacturing employment statistics, and it was adopted by voice vote.
"The American people know that, if it comes on a sesame seed bun with secret sauce, it is not manufacturing," wrote Brown, in a letter urging colleagues to support the amendment.
House and Senate negotiators retained the amendment in the final omnibus spending bill passed both chambers of Congress last week.
Brown serves on the House Commerce Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over the U.S. Commerce Department's new Manufacturing Czar.