FIRST TIME IN U.S. HISTORY GRASSROOTS SMALL BUSSINESSES ORGANIZED TO AFFECT CHANGE IN FEDERAL CONTRACTING POLICIES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Arlington, Virginia, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) November 2, 2011 --

Falls Church, VA, November 1, 2011 –Federal subcontracting programs supporting small businesses have failed in many respects. Large businesses have not fulfilled consistently their own subcontracting plans for small business federal subcontractors. As a result , the small business subcontracting community that does business in the federal government market is organizing to focus on developing solutions to reform the federal small business subcontracting regulations. The National Federal Contractors Association (NaFCA) and the publishers of SetAside Alert, in collaboration with 11 national small business trade associations, are starting a grassroots movement for the small business community that will confront this challenge. While this kind of movement has occurred on civil rights and health care policies, it has never before been used by the small business community that does business with the federal government. Over the next 10 weeks, small business working groups will develop proposed solutions to address the concerns of mismanagement of the federal small business subcontracting programs.
On Wednesday, November 9, 2011 NaFCA and Set-Aside Alert are inviting all small businesses that provide products and services to the federal government to a Federal Subcontracting Program Solutions Summit Conference in Falls Church, Virginia.
The small business community will be using the Solutions Summit as a proven best practice model to provide solutions to the federal government that will provide for innovative ideas that the government can use to restructure the current subcontracting programs.

The agenda for the Summit includes a review of current policies and regulations; panel discussions on examples of subcontracting gone awry, questions for large business prime contractors ; and congressional actions that are currently in progress. The Summit will kick off work groups that will be thoroughly analyzing the problems while developing workable solutions to amend what has been a traditional disadvantage to small businesses.
“We have to address those things in the current programs that have repeatedly proven to be disadvantageous for the small business community,” said NaFCA Chairman Fernando V. Galaviz. “We need to find practical, real working solutions to concerns like teaming agreements without teeth, the renegotiation of proposed rates, the lack of privity as an excuse for the lack of enforcement of small business set-aside requirements and the non-enforcement of small business subcontracting plans and provisions.”

The conference will take place starting at 8:30 am on November 9, 2011 at the Fairview Park Marriott in Falls Church, Virginia. For more information or to register, please visit http://www.setasidealert.com/summit or http://www.nafcausa.com.

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