Stalled equipment workers 'start things up' at Soldier Field

Start Us Up USA!, a nationwide grassroots campaign of the construction equipment industry and its allies, descended upon Chicago Oct. 20 with a rally of local business and labor leaders and construction workers calling on the federal government to move quickly on the reauthorization of a critical transportation bill. The group said new transportation funding is necessary to improve our nation's infrastructure and spur a recovery of the construction equipment industry, especially in hard-hit states like Illinois. The rally was followed by a caravan of construction equipment, idled by the lack of federal support, parading around Soldier Field to urge the federal government to stop job loss.

"The construction equipment industry is in a deep depression and we have lost 33,000 jobs in Illinois and 37 percent of our workforce nationwide the past few years," said Toby Mack, president and CEO of the Associated Equipment Distributors, based in Oak Brook, Ill. Dennis Slater, president of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers added: "More jobs are at stake in Chicagoland, throughout Illinois and across the country as time is running out for the men and women of the construction and equipment industries without long-term federal transportation investment." AEM and AED are co-leading the Start Us Up USA!campaign.

Illinois is among the ten hardest hit states in the nation according to new research released by IHS Global Insight in September. While the recession abates for some sectors of the U.S. economy, the construction equipment industry remains stalled. Since 2006, the state of Illinois has lost nearly $9.5 billion worth of economic output from the construction industry. The research also found:

• Job losses in this sector are significantly worse than other industries like auto and finance that have received government bailouts.
• Two out of every 25 jobs lost during the current recession (or eight percent) can be traced to this downturn in the construction equipment industry.
• The main culprit is a more than 50 percent drop in construction equipment spending since its peak in 2006, which coincides with declining infrastructure investment this decade.

More information can be found at www.StartUsUpUSA.com.