the strike wave in the United States, more than 10,000 John Deere workers at 14 plants, including seven in Iowa, four in Illinois, one each in Kansas, Colorado and Georgia are in strike. Today marks the seventh day of the strike, and negotiations resume Monday. Workers who are manning picket lines at the John Deere plant in Des Moines, Iowa, will get a visit today from U.S. secretary of agriculture and former Iowa governor, Tom Vilsack, according to the United Auto Workers Local 450.
Basically, what we’re wanting — we’ve seen a tentative agreement that we had a ratification vote on October 4th. We’ve seen a very paltry wage increase. We’ve seen no improvements to our incentive plan, no language to address any of the failings there. And really, the big nonstarter for a lot of people was the fact that any new hires coming in after the 1st of November of this year would not be entitled to a secure defined pension, but rather a 401(k) pension — or, 401(k) match. And a lot of us are not willing to invest our retirement benefits, for the kids coming in, the kids down the street, on a Wall Street speculation portfolio.
It might be important to note also that Deere is in the wake of record profits. They’re projected to make between $5.7 and $5.9 billion this year. They just rewarded their CEO with a 160% wage or salary increase. They gave their investors a 17% quarterly dividend hike back in August. And for a worker like me, over this next six years, right out of the gate, I make about 20 bucks an hour, and it’s going to be about a dollar wage increase for me, followed up, about the end of those six years, about $2. What we’re asking for is a fair shake and something equitable. We don’t — I’d like to quote Walter Reuther here: We don’t want a bigger slice of pie; we want a bigger pie. They need to come in with a bigger bucket of money. And let’s negotiate.
— source democracynow.org | Oct 20, 2021