Rep. Eric Sorensen visits Rock Island to address company’s concerns

As the Democratic National Convention is underway, one congressman is making his rounds outside of Chicago. Representative Eric Sorensen visited Martin Equipment Tuesday in order to see what issues the company wants him to relay back to Congress. One concern is the lack of interest in trade jobs.

“As a member of congress, understanding that we are swiftly going to, over the next few years, appropriate new construction projects, said Rep. Eric Sorensen the Centennial bridge, the I-80 bridge, these are big projects we are going to need skilled labor. If we don’t have the workforce needed in the next ten, twenty years to complete these projects, we may not get them done. What happens to the economy, what happens to our region if we don’t make that investment in people.”

Martin Equipment also wants to address concerns regarding the Right to Repair act, which would allow access for consumers to any repair instructions and tools that are normally held exclusively by the manufacturer.

“The concept of Right to Repair for people that need to be able to fix their equipment, for sure, but if there’s things inside of that bill that us as a dealer won’t be able to have our full contract in selling parts and other big parts companies could sell it, and get the parts at cost, I mean that would be catastrophic for us,” said Bobby Martin III, a co-owner of Martin Equipment. “We’ve spent tens of millions of dollars, we’ve had our contract with Deere since 1926, and so we just have a lot invested, we have a lot of employees and resources invested in that, a lot of employees that are trained, it’s a big part of our business.”

The Right to Repair act remains in limbo in congress. Five states have passed a version of the act.