Kickstart: Is your company 'essential?'

With the start of a new work week comes a new list of states and communities calling for residents to "shelter in place."

The exceptions to that rule are essential businesses such as grocery stores, banks and pharmacies.

Manufacturers supplying the medical or food supply chain are exempt, but who else is covered? That's a question that may depend on exactly where your business is.

In Pennsylvania, as Steve Toloken reported, a March 19 declaration ordered all "nonlife-sustaining businesses" to close. That order, however, said plastics products, rubber products and resin manufacturing were among businesses that would be allowed to remain open.

In other sites it is not as clear-cut. Michigan, which declared a "shelter in place" order on March 23, exempts "chemical supply chains and safety" operations as well as "critical manufacturing," but it doesn't define what is considered critical.

Check with local authorities or industry experts to determine if your company falls into the exceptions.

That headline is stolen from a post by Fred Keller, the founder of injection molder Cascade Engineering Inc., on Jackson Hole Economics' website.

Keller, who was an early and vocal advocate of a "triple bottom line" approach to business that considers employees and sustainability as well as profits, warns that COVID-19 and the response to it by corporate leaders will change the way we view the business community.

"I am an optimist, so my hope is that the COVID-19 pandemic can be the positive catalyst to force us towards a new kind of capitalism that really works for society at large," he writes.

He points to companies that are stepping in to provide needed services. But why, he continues, does it take a crisis to excel? Will business in the future consider its ability to do the right thing alongside return on investment?

Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Cascade, he noted, may be allowed to keep at least some of its 1,800 employees busy because it makes parts for trucks that deliver medical products and food. Christina Keller, his daughter who is now president and CEO of Cascade, wrote in a post on the company website that the company is focused on maintaining a healthy workplace while continuing production.

But if companies can't remain open?

"If we are ordered to shut our business down, we are planning on ways to keep our employees whole," Fred Keller wrote. "It is not an easy decision knowing that it will seriously impact our profitability, but it is essential that our employees not be penalized for situations beyond their control. Or put another way, it is the right thing to do, and the right thing to do is always the correct default compass setting in difficult times."

MAPP, the Manufacturers Alliance for Plastics Processors, has teamed with the American Mold Builders Association and the Association of Rubber Products Manufacturers to develop a 300-page document with policies and procedures covering the COVID-19 outbreak.

By working together, the groups can pull the best information on hand related to communicating with employees and the outside community, sanitation practices and where to access and share other resources.

In addition, the groups have set a March 27 webinar to discuss best practices and forums for members to share information.