On behalf of nearly 1,000 Associated Builders and Contractors members across Michigan, we wish to express concern and support for Michigan’s small businesses.

Restaurants, bars, theaters, and many more small businesses are our customers, and they matter. They create jobs, they create community, and they create stability. Their wellbeing matters to their customers, to their associates, and to their associates’ families. Their wellbeing matters to builders and contractors, too.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services’ latest shutdown orders will lead to a continued downslide in the economy, they will kill businesses, and they will kill jobs. Making matters worse, the orders come without any additional resources to sustain those businesses financially as the state locks their doors.

Additionally, giving less than a three-day notice for those businesses to prepare was avoidable.

More warning could have given them valuable time to make a plan to sustain their already struggling business. After already experiencing a prolonged shutdown in the spring, and now heading into the winter with endless uncertainty, those cornerstones of our communities are undergoing another terrible setback.

That setback is the result of politics, not a virus.

The lack of cooperation between the Governor’s Office and the Legislature is a sad and unfortunate contributor to the economic disaster sweeping away small businesses and the families that rely on them for jobs.

We know we can mitigate the spread of coronavirus in Michigan without causing the financial collapse of our clients and customers, who are also family and neighbors. We encourage our elected officials on a bipartisan basis to work collectively to bring a swift end to this shutdown and save thousands of businesses and jobs.

It’s time to set partisan fighting aside.

Michigan’s businesses, employees, and citizens across our state deserve better.

In the meantime, we join other associations and organizations encouraging citizens to support small businesses, to shop locally, eat locally, and to give to local charities.

Jimmy E. Greene is president of ABC of Michigan.