John Deere strikers face re-vote

Submitted by AWL on 16 November, 2021 - 7:08 Author: Angela Paton
John Deere strikers

A re-vote has been announced on the defeated deal in the dispute at John Deere agricultural equipment factories, in Iowa and Indiana and elsewhere in the USA. 10,000 workers had vowed to continue, but union officials from the United Automobile Workers (UAW) announced on 12 November that there would be a re-vote on the agreement already overwhelmingly voted down on 3 November, with only small alterations made.

This is reminiscent of the UAW actions at Volvo trucks earlier this year, where 3,000 workers voted down three UAW sell out agreements. It takes the total UAW backed contracts rejected by workers across America this year alone to seven, including John Deere; Dana, the parts supplier for John Deere, where workers almost unanimously rejected a deal this autumn; and Volvo.

There was a 55% overall vote against the agreement when the UAW officials tried to ram in through on 3 November, the second such agreement that was rejected. The first was rejected by 90% on 10 October. Five pages of legal-ese was shown to strikers only two days in advance of the vote, another tactic to ram through the agreement, and there has been an information black out by the UAW.

Both agreements put forward have failed to meet demands to reinstate retiree health benefits, to tackle 25 years of eroding wages, and to win a substantial improvement to working conditions.

John Deere is already organising strike-breakers, as it goes into the fifth week of the first strike in 35 years in the company.

This comes against the background of a federal corruption investigation into the UAW. Seventeen officials have indicted so far, the latest on charges of embezzling $2 million of members’ dues to fund a gambling habit.

We should support the Unite All Workers for Democracy, the UAW grassroots campaign to weed out corruption in the union and support workers in winning their demands of their employers without being sold down the river or suffering back room deals with the bosses. We support the John Deere strikers who will not be bullied into accepting shoddy deals and seek to wrest control of the strike out of the hands of corrupt UAW bureacurats.

There is an urgent need for rank-and-file strike committees to break the hold of corrupt union bureaucrats and to mobilise workers to force management to meet their fair demands.

Comments

Submitted by AWL on Wed, 17/11/2021 - 16:28

In Spectre magazine, on where the current strikes fit into the wider picture of class struggle in the US: here.

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