Serta, ISPA at odds on FR
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, January 16, 2005
High Point — Bedding major Serta, which has resigned from the International Sleep Products Assn., had significant disagreements last year with how ISPA handled the mattress flammability issue.
Serta last year became the first national bedding producer to introduce bedding lines with new open-flame fire-resistant protection. On several occasions, Serta found its views on mattress flammability at odds with those expressed by ISPA.
The disagreements surfaced last July when Ed Lilly, then Serta's president, released a letter he sent to ISPA's board of trustees that was critical of how ISPA reported on a Senate Commerce Committee hearing.
ISPA posted a press release on its Web site that said it offered testimony to the committee on the day of the hearing, and quoted from that testimony, which it said was provided by ISPA Vice Chairman David Orders. Orders' statement also was posted on ISPA's Web site.
But his testimony was written, not oral, and was submitted before the hearing, on a proposed federal flammability bill, was held. ISPA's release didn't mention oral testimony presented at the hearing by Serta's Al Klancnik, who was the only mattress industry representative invited to speak at the hearing.
"I personally witnessed the hearing, as did (ISPA executives) Dick Doyle and Nancy Blatt," Lilly wrote in his letter. "While I have come to expect little recognition from the industry for Serta making safer mattresses, I didn't realize it would lead to ISPA misrepresenting its effort at the expense of the Serta effort. There was no ISPA or David Orders testimony at that hearing, as only six people spoke to the committee.
"It is hard to reconcile these two accounts," Lilly's letter continued. "Neither ISPA nor David Orders read anything into the record at the hearing. ISPA completely ignored the role that Al Klancnik and Serta played in helping the industry get what it wanted. It would be far better for the industry to have ISPA represent what really happened instead of trying to take credit for what they didn't do. Perception is reality, and ISPA has created a perception that just isn't true."
Later, ISPA acknowledged that Klancnik did address the Senate committee, and included a link to Klancnik's testimony on its Web site.
Asked for comment on Lilly's letter by Furniture/Today, ISPA's Doyle said: "I am pleased that Serta helped reinforce the industry's position before the Senate Commerce Committee. Their effort, along with the written testimony provided by ISPA Vice Chair David Orders of Park Place Corp., helped reinforce the importance of allowing the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to move forward with the development of an effective and practical regulation."
On another occasion, Serta challenged the conclusions of an industry-commissioned study that Orders cited in his written statement to the Senate panel. Orders said the study indicated that a 30-minute burn test would raise costs enough to reduce mattress sales. In a Furniture/Today story, Lilly questioned the numbers in the study and said Serta's sales hadn't declined due to the addition of FR protection.
Serta and ISPA also disagreed last year over ISPA's contention that California could not legally move ahead with its mattress flammability legislation. Lilly said publicly that California was on solid legal footing. That issue occupied the industry for several months before California affirmed that it was moving ahead. California's new FR law went into effect Jan. 1.
Lilly left Serta in September, and was succeeded by Bob Sherman, who reorganized the company into Serta International. Sherman announced in December that Serta would leave ISPA.
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