8/30/2023 0 Comments Deere strikeWall Street seems more concerned with a prolonged strike than with increases in labor costs, which currently account for 10 percent of the company’s expenses. Yesterday afternoon, however, news broke that there was indeed a meeting scheduled between the UAW bargaining team and management for today. “In order for us to be competitive we have gone as far as we’re gonna go.” “The agreement that we provided is frankly our best and final offer,” Marc Howze, chief administrative officer for Deere, said November 3 in an interview with Bloomberg. The company initially told the media it didn’t plan to return to the bargaining table. “We will always be playing catch-up, because these contracts are six years.” NOT-SO-FINAL OFFER? “If we don’t get caught up now, we’ll never be in this position again,” said Brad Lake, a member of UAW Local 838 in Waterloo, Iowa. They’re 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. To sweeten the deal, Deere offered an $8,500 ratification bonus.īut for a majority of Deere workers, that wasn’t enough. And it boosted existing pensions and added retirement bonuses. It restored a cost-of-living adjustment that workers had lost in the last contract. It killed the “third tier” Deere had proposed, preserving the option of a traditional pension for all new hires. The agreement included immediate 10 percent raises-double what was in the first TA-plus two more 5 percent raises and three 3 percent lump sum payments during the six-year contract. ![]() It came as a shock to many analysts, given the concessions workers had been able to wring out of Deere during their first two weeks on strike. The vote was closer than on the first tentative agreement, which was rejected by 90 percent of members. Company and union negotiators are set to meet today for the first time since the deal was voted down. Workers at the farm equipment manufacturer remain on strike. A month into the nation’s largest work stoppage, striking John Deere workers are holding out for a better deal.įor 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.
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