The month-long John Deere strike is over, with the 10,000 workers going back on the job after voting to ratify a new six-year contract on Wednesday.
The workers had rejected two prior proposed contracts before accepting the third offer their union leaders brought them. The new contract includes only “modest modifications” to the second offer, but that was enough to move from 55% against on the second offer to 61% in favor of the third offer, with 39% opposed. (The first contract offer was rejected by 90% of workers, kicking off the strike.)
According to the UAW, the new contract “includes an $8,500 signing bonus; 20% increase in wages over the lifetime of the contract with 10% this year; return of Cost of Living adjustments; three 3% lump sum payments; enhanced options for retirement and enhanced CIPP performance benefits. Healthcare remains the same for the life of the agreement.”
”UAW John Deere members did not just unite themselves. They seemed to unite the nation in a struggle for fairness in the workplace. We could not be more proud of these UAW members and their families,” the union’s president, Ray Curry, said in a statement.
And about that. Recent months have seen struggles for worker power and workplace fairness gaining widespread attention. Although the behind-the-scenes entertainment workers of IATSE very narrowly approved their own contract after a threatened strike and another possible strike of nearly 30,000 Kaiser health care workers was called off after a last-minute deal, workers have been showing their willingness to hold out for a good contract even if it means going on strike or coming to the brink.
Those Kaiser workers didn’t go on strike over their own contract—but more than 40,000 Kaiser nurses were planning to walk out in a two-day sympathy strike to show support for around 600 operating engineers at Kaiser who have been on strike for two months.
Around 1,400 Kellogg’s cereal workers have been on strike since October 5, fighting the company’s demands for concessions and seeking to eliminate a two-tier system in which more recent employees don’t get the same health or retirement benefits.
Graduate students at Harvard University are voting on a proposed contract just as they were beginning a strike, which would have been their second this fall following a three-day October strike. Dozens of school bus drivers in Maryland are staging a sick-out as they fight for higher pay. Reporters at a small Massachusetts newspaper are on a byline strike.
Those are just some of the worker actions happening. And the John Deere workers, by holding out for a better contract not just once, but twice, showed the power of solidarity and sent a warning to companies that when workers say what they need to agree to a contract, they mean it.
The workers had rejected two prior proposed contracts before accepting the third offer their union leaders brought them. The new contract includes only “modest modifications” to the second offer, but that was enough to move from 55% against on the second offer to 61% in favor of the third offer, with 39% opposed. (The first contract offer was rejected by 90% of workers, kicking off the strike.)
According to the UAW, the new contract “includes an $8,500 signing bonus; 20% increase in wages over the lifetime of the contract with 10% this year; return of Cost of Living adjustments; three 3% lump sum payments; enhanced options for retirement and enhanced CIPP performance benefits. Healthcare remains the same for the life of the agreement.”
”UAW John Deere members did not just unite themselves. They seemed to unite the nation in a struggle for fairness in the workplace. We could not be more proud of these UAW members and their families,” the union’s president, Ray Curry, said in a statement.
And about that. Recent months have seen struggles for worker power and workplace fairness gaining widespread attention. Although the behind-the-scenes entertainment workers of IATSE very narrowly approved their own contract after a threatened strike and another possible strike of nearly 30,000 Kaiser health care workers was called off after a last-minute deal, workers have been showing their willingness to hold out for a good contract even if it means going on strike or coming to the brink.
Those Kaiser workers didn’t go on strike over their own contract—but more than 40,000 Kaiser nurses were planning to walk out in a two-day sympathy strike to show support for around 600 operating engineers at Kaiser who have been on strike for two months.
Around 1,400 Kellogg’s cereal workers have been on strike since October 5, fighting the company’s demands for concessions and seeking to eliminate a two-tier system in which more recent employees don’t get the same health or retirement benefits.
Graduate students at Harvard University are voting on a proposed contract just as they were beginning a strike, which would have been their second this fall following a three-day October strike. Dozens of school bus drivers in Maryland are staging a sick-out as they fight for higher pay. Reporters at a small Massachusetts newspaper are on a byline strike.
Those are just some of the worker actions happening. And the John Deere workers, by holding out for a better contract not just once, but twice, showed the power of solidarity and sent a warning to companies that when workers say what they need to agree to a contract, they mean it.