Carolina Mattress Guild leaves ISPA
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, March 27, 2005
Thomasville, N.C. — Carolina Mattress Guild has resigned from the International Sleep Product Assn., citing its disagreement with the trade association's handling of the mattress flammability issue.
CMG President Neal Grigg told Furniture/Today that he resigned in a letter he sent to ISPA in January. ISPA, which earlier acknowledged the departures of Sealy, Serta and Leggett & Platt, did not publicly note CMG's resignation when it occurred.
With CMG's departure, the first two bedding producers to market new, more fire-resistant mattress lines are out of ISPA. Serta, the first national producer to roll out FR lines, announced its departure from ISPA in December.
CMG became the industry's first player to introduce bedding with open-flame protection with the April 2003 debut of its Safe Dreams line. CMG's early entry into the FR arena was not well received by ISPA officials, Grigg recalled. He said ISPA officials questioned the company's actions when they met with him at his showroom shortly after CMG announced its FR line.
In Grigg's view, ISPA has consistently pursued an anti-FR position.
"They fought California (which put its new mattress flammability standard into effect on Jan. 1) all the way down the line," he said. "Then they said they were supporting California."
ISPA officials have denied that they fought the California standard.
ISPA Chairman Tom LeDuc, informed of Grigg's comments last week, responded that ISPA adopted a proactive stance on the FR issue. "Look at the record," he told Furniture/Today. "It indicates that we worked from very early on to come up with a good standard in California."
He said the bedding industry did not fight the onset of government standards.
Grigg said ISPA President Dick Doyle responded to CMG's letter of resignation from ISPA with a letter expressing "shame on me that I was not more involved in ISPA." Grigg characterized that letter as "a reprimand."
LeDuc said Doyle was striving to express the view that ISPA and its leadership are very interested in getting more people involved in ISPA. "Perhaps Dick's attitude came off as more aggressive than it should," LeDuc said. "It's an attempt to get people's input on a more formal basis."
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Carolina Mattress Guild leaves ISPA
Mar 28, 2005
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