A month into the nation’s largest work stoppage, striking John Deere workers are holding out for a better deal.
For the second time in a month, 10,000 Auto Workers at John Deere stunned both the company and the union leadership November 2 by rejecting a tentative agreement. Workers at the farm equipment manufacturer remain on strike. Company and union negotiators are set to meet today for the first time since the deal was voted down.
A majority of Deere workers are pushing for a deal that includes retiree health insurance (currently offered only to workers hired before 1997), shores up the incentive pay system, fixes a broken grievance system, and brings real wages up to pre-’97 levels, taking Deere’s record profits into account.
They feel like it’s now or never. “If we don’t get caught up [on wages] now, we’ll never be in this position again,” said Brad Lake, a member of UAW Local 838 in Waterloo, Iowa. “We will always be playing catch-up, because these contracts are six years.”