Advocacy
It’s the nature of the industry which causes problems and challenges when it comes to both legislation and regulation. Let us explain. The members of ABPA are the manufacturers, suppliers and distributors of independently produced aftermarket crash parts. By extension, this organization represents a group of businessmen who busted an 80 year monopoly held by the car makers.
For more than three quarters of a century, there were no practical marketplace alternatives--save for salvaged parts--for the purchase of automotive crash parts to satisfy the requirements of a claim. It was a province nearly exclusively the preserve of the OEs, through their dealerships. As a result, parts prices were artificially inflated. In fact, in resulting studies done throughout the entire decade of the ’80s and most of the ’90s by organizations representing the insurance industry, studies showed it would cost more than four times the value of the car rolling out of the dealer’s showroom to rebuild it part by part. A car costing $20,000 would--if assembled piece by piece--cost more than $80,000.
Something had to give and when the industry began and those who were to become members of Automotive Body Parts Association began distributing parts in the late 1970s and early 1980s, people took notice. The car dealers hated the advent of new competitors. Body shops had mixed emotions. They liked the idea that there were parts which could be sourced from other than the dealers, many of which ran body shops that were their competitors. But they found fault with the quality of some of the parts and they also felt--some strongly--that they were taking a hit in the wallet using these alternative products. That is simple to see. When a fender cost $400.00 and they secured 25 percent for just ordering it, there was a $100.00 profit on the bottom line. When that fender now cost only $180.00--yes, there was that much difference initially--their profitability shrunk proportionately. Even at 33% discount, that fender would only yield $$59.40 in profit. Thus the mixed emotions.
Here were parts which might save a car from being totaled, meaning more work for the shops, but some of the profitability was being gutted from the job. This ambivalence on the part of shop owners and their organizations throughout the ’80s led to many types of legislation being introduced in many of the state capitals. All of it was designed to accomplish the same end: stop the intrusion of competition in parts choice and sales. And that is where ABPA, working in consort with its major distributor member--Keystone Automotive--has tirelessly backed the type of lobbying efforts necessary to insure a fair hearing among those who would--on first blush--pass legislation which would not only impact the industry but also the consuming public.
While we mention Keystone, it was really Miami’s Leo Schigiel and Inteuro Auto Parts (now gone) which first hired a full time representative to walk the halls of Tallahassee and lobby for the industry and against restrictive and prohibitive legislation. Eileen Sottile is her name and when Inteuro was sold to Keystone, Eileen moved to the new company. Now Keystone, in a subsequent merger, is part of a larger automotive group--the LKQ Corporation--and ABPA continually works with that organization to help protect the industry. Sottile, while wearing the hat of LKQ’s vice president of government relations, is also the co-chair of the ABPA Legislation & Regulation Committee. Her staff, still located in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, vigilantly tracks the legislation which would harm the industry and makes sure that our side is heard. Additionally, she is also the executive director of the Quality Parts Coalition.
This is a D.C-based organization founded specifically to change a part of the patent laws within the U.S. code, especially as it pertains to automotive repair parts. Among all the activities perpetuated by ABPA, this type of legislative advocacy can prove the most important. It is a problem only in that the average member of ABPA, as well as those within the industry generally, find these issues dry, boring and a real snooze. If they had their way, they would choose to remain unattached.
ABPA cannot afford the luxury of this position. Oftentimes it is well-meaning but ill-advised legislators and regulators who can strike the death knell for the industry. We work to keep that from happening.