General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJohn Deer Strike +$5.9 billion/profit +info-long
Last edited Fri Oct 15, 2021, 03:39 PM - Edit history (1)
Link to tweet
Jonah Furman is a long term labor writer.
His Twitter feeds to follow on the strike
1.-@labornotes
2.-@ JonahFurman
Link to tweet
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Link to tweet
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Link to tweet
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I'll post the tweets from thread reader app in next reply
irisblue
(33,041 posts)3:40 PM, injured cat caught, on the way to the vet.
Not my cats, but in my yard
irisblue
(33,041 posts)Long thread, but important: John Deere workers have reached out to me frustrated about media repeating company talking points that workers make 60-70k a year. One who's been there over a decade showed me what they made in 2020: Under $40k. So lets talk about wages at John Deere.
*****IMAGE OF A PAY STUB*****
First of all, the pandemic caused layoffs, for which workers were not paid by Deere. Layoffs even in normal times are not uncommon. Deeres $60k/year figure is based on working 2200 hours; thats over 42 hours per week for 52 weeks in a year.
But most Deere plants have layoffs that can run up to 3 months of the year, so many workers dont get those hours. In 2015, the last contract passed by under 200 votes, because many workers were laid off, wanted the ratification bonus, & didnt know when theyd be working again.
The top base pay for most workers at Deere is about $20. When we talk about a $1 raise, people are referring to the 5% increase in the first year that Deere offered.
But when Deere puts out wage figures about Making the Best Pay BETTER, in the fine print they said its an estimate based on CIPP 120%. That refers to the Continuous Improvement Pay Plan. Lets talk about CIPP.
CIPP is a team-based incentive pay, which means you get paid extra according to how much your department produces, based on quotas set by the company. Every 6 months, the company ups the quota by 2%. Even if pay doesnt go up, or there are no more cuts to inefficiency to make
If you hit 115% or more of your CIPP quota, money goes into a reserve fund that pays out quarterly. But if your plan is failing (under 115% of the quota), money comes out of the reserve fund. Many workers see pennies or nothing at all from their CIPP payments.
But some workers see a good amount from CIPP pay! Which means that the workforce is divided. You can be working in a plant and look across from you and your coworker is making twice as much as you, because theyre in a different department with a different CIPP quota.
The kicker is that many workers dont know how much theyre making specifically, as the company no longer provides pay stubs unless workers go in and print them out themselves.
At least one local picketed over this in 2016, but Deere didnt budge. One local leader speculates theres a ton of wage theft at Deere, with people working out of title, making lower pay than theyre contractually owed. But nobody knows! Because many people never see a pay stub.
Don't miss the forest for the trees. These workers make about $20 an hour for a CEO that makes $7,000 an hour, building machines that sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, for a company that's profiting close to $6 billion *this year*. Deere can afford it, & workers need it.
Oh and one more thing about CIPP!
During the pandemic, due to supply chain issues, departments were obviously unable to reach 115% of their "quotas." In many cases the company said "oh well, you don't get your incentive pay!"
This is insane!
But an arbitrator ruled in favor of the company to the tune of millions of dollars, because of weak contract language, which the new agreement did nothing to address
RainCaster
(10,939 posts)I got my new tractor 3 weeks ago, after waiting 7 months. Most of that was due to factory scheduling issues. Nice machine, but I'm not going to recommend it to anyone because of these labor problems.
irisblue
(33,041 posts)ShazamIam
(2,577 posts)"farmers," like the one they interviewed with tangerines, vegetables almonds and the owner of 3 John Deer dealerships in CA's Central Valley. NPR didn't mention the workers concerns except that they are on strike. John Deer, like ATT is heavily invested in that old kochnetwork of anti-democratic conservatives.
NCjack
(10,279 posts)other companies that screw their workers. It took a while, but the company is wrecking the goodwill that it owned.