They rejected 5% or 6% pay-increases.
To which I say: good call.
Management has a lot of money to spare:
Under the agreement that the workers rejected, a top scale Deere production worker would make just over $30 per hour, rising to $31.84 after five years, according to summary of the proposal.
Creighton University economist Ernie Goss said workers have a lot of leverage to bargain with right now because of the ongoing worker shortages.
“Right now across the US, labor is in a very good strong position to bargain, so now is a good time to strike,” Goss said.
Earlier this year, another group of UAW-represented workers went on strike at a Volvo Trucks plant in Virginia and wound up with better pay and lower-cost health benefits after rejecting three tentative contract offers.
The contracts under negotiation cover 14 Deere plants, including seven in Iowa, four in Illinois and one each in Kansas, Colorado and Georgia.
The contract talks at the Moline, Illinois-based company were unfolding as Deere is expecting to report record profits between $5.7 billion and $5.9 billion this year. The company has been reporting strong sales of its agricultural and construction equipment this year.
The shareholders will just have to be a little disappointed, I guess.
At a time when a Cosco cashier can make 25.00 an hour, Deere management is living in fantasy land. I have always been in favor of a free market, as long as it is a two way street for labor and employers.
ReplyDeleteI always like to check actual numbers on these things. So if we go with the high, $5.9 bil profits from the year, per statista Deere has 69.6 thousand employees in 2020.
ReplyDeleteSo all the profits straight evenly divided into employees would be ~$84,770 for the year. Or broken down into 2080 work hours (40 hrs per week x 52 weeks a year) about a raise of $40.75 an hour.
Of course the question then always is: If revenue drops (looking at the graphs, it was just 5 years ago in 2016 their revenue was below $30 bil), do all of the employees take a requisite pay cut as well?
Paying your top-end employees thirty bucks per hour going up to less-than-$32/hour in five years is a joke.
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, when revenue drops, it has been the case that a lot of employees take 100% pay cuts.
In the wake of the woke corporation phenomenon, I've gotten out of the business of doing pro-corporate apologetics. Deere had a record-breaking year and was blessed with employees who stuck with them during a hellish two years. Most manufacturers are seeing employees pour out the doors, if the jobs reports are to be believed.
Time to reward Deere's.
Yeah if they're smart, they should reward loyal employees. That's why I calculated out what they would have to work with and at $40 extra bucks, that's a lot of leeway.
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