‘Greed’: John Deere rolls out hundreds of US layoffs and sends work to Mexico
Agricultural equipment company plans to move production out of the country in move condemned by workers
Michael Sainato
Fri 7 Jun 2024 13.00 CEST
US workers at John Deere plants have accused the company of acting on “greed” as America’s most famous agricultural equipment company plans to shift more production to Mexico.
The company – famous for its green tractors and leaping deer logo – has announced layoffs of several hundred workers over the last several months with more layoffs planned for later this year.
“We get wind of more layoffs daily, it seems, and it’s causing uncertainty all over,” said a longtime John Deere worker at the Harvester Works plant in East Moline, Illinois, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “The only reason for Deere to do this is greed.”
They cited the company’s recent profits. John Deere reported a profit of over $10bn in fiscal year 2023 and its CEO John May received $26.7m in total compensation. John Deere spent over $7.2bn on stock buybacks in 2023 and provided shareholders with more than $1.4bn in dividends.
The worker said: “Our harvester plant is still in production and management has been quiet. They’re not doing the normal ‘time to talk’ meetings as they have in recent past. My belief is that they don’t want people to know they are losing their jobs until they get everything built for the year.
“We know a layoff is coming, we don’t know if, how many or when it will happen. We’re expecting to finish production in mid-August and believe we will see a large layoff then.”
In October last year, John Deere announced 250 indefinite layoffs at the Illinois plant. Another 34 workers were laid off in May.
Earlier this year, at least 650 jobs were cut at John Deere’s plants in Iowa, with 500 jobs cut in Waterloo and 150 jobs cut at the Ankeny plant. Another 103 workers took an early retirement offer at the Ottumwa plant after the company announced plans to cut more jobs at the plant later this year and shift that production to Mexico.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/ar ... ing-mexico
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