AOC joins ‘striketober’ support as more than 10,000 John Deere workers strike for better wages and benefits

United Auto Workers union strike is latest among massive US labour movement during pandemic calling for better working conditions and wages amid record profits

More than 10,000 members of the United Auto Workers union are on strike after union workers at the company that manufactures John Deere tractors overwhelmingly rejected a new contract that members say has undervalued their labour during a pandemic that has seen record profits for the company.

Union workers at Deere & Co initiated a strike across 14 plants at midnight, effectively on 14 October, after the company “failed to present an agreement that met our members’ demands and needs”, the union said in a statement.

“Our members at John Deere strike for the ability to earn a decent living, retire with dignity and establish fair work rules,” said union vice president Chuck Browning. “We stay committed to bargaining until our members’ goals are achieved.”

Union president Ray Curry said the union’s nearly 1 million retired and active workers “stand in solidarity” with striking John Deere workers.

“Members have worked through the pandemic after the company deemed them essential, to produce the equipment that feeds America, builds America and powers the American economy,” he said in a statement.

The strike is the latest in a massive, nationwide organised labor action amid a pandemic and its economic fallout that has underscored the nation’s wealth gap, with staffing and supply-chain issues that union workers and advocates see as leverage for better conditions.

“After years of being underserved and taken for granted – [and] doubly so during the pandemic – workers are starting to authorize strikes across the country,” said US Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, throwing her support behind “Striketober.”

More than three decades after the last major John Deere strike, workers are entering one of the nation’s largest picket lines following a pandemic that has drained essential workers and underscored disparities between company profits and worker pay, members said.

“These are skilled, tedious jobs that [union] members take pride in every day,” said the union’s Region 8 director Ron McInroy. “Strikes are never easy on workers or their families but John Deere workers believe they deserve a better share of the pie, a safer workplace, and adequate benefits.”

The strike deadline was announced on 10 October after an overwhelming 90 per cent of the company’s union workers joined the vote on a tentative deal – with 90 per cent of those votes rejecting the deal, a surprise to both the company and union leadership.

Union negotiators characterised the contract as making “significant economic gains” and “the highest quality health care benefits in the industry,” but workers criticised the deal, arguing it makes insufficient improvements to wages and pension plans, among other benefits.

In its third-quarter reporting, the company announced that it earned more in the first nine months of the 2021 fiscal year than it did in all of 2013.

The company reported a net income through the beginning of August of nearly $4.7bn, topping 2013’s gains of $3.5bn. Its global sales have reached more than $32bn in 2021.

In a statement provided toThe Independent, the company’s vice president of labour relation Brad Morris said the company “is committed to a favorable outcome for everyone involved and is committed to reach an agreement with the [union] that would put every employee in a better economic position and continue to make them the highest paid employees in the agriculture and construction industries.”

The company has activated a “Customer Service Continuation Plan” to keep operations running at its facilities, the company announced.

“Our immediate concern is meeting the needs of our customers, who work in time-sensitive and critical industries such as agriculture and construction,” a spokesperson told The Independent.

United Auto Workers members will also soon be voting on whether the union’s 1 million members should directly elect their top officers, rather than appointments, in a bid to better hold their leaders accountable. Ballots are due on 29 November.

Workers from some of the world’s largest brands – Frito Lay, Kelloggs and Nabisco – also went on strike across several states for better working conditions and wages.

Thousands of members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees will go on strike on 18 October if a new contact deal is not reached with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, with 60,000 union members potentially grinding film and television production to a halt.

There are also high-profile union attempts underway at Starbucks coffee shop locations in New York, where workers have organised to create the first union at the chain.

More than 1,000 Alabama coal miners have been striking since April, and rallied in New York City in August to draw attention to their fight.

After a high-profile union vote among workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, which gained support from members of Congress, labour organisers accused the retail giant of busting a campaign to create the first-ever union in the company’s history.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, one of the nation’s largest unions, vowed to “supply all resources necessary” to help unionise Amazon workers.

The movements also arrive as members of Congress continue to debate the White House-backed Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or Pro Act, which would constitute one of the largest labour provisions since the New Deal era, taking aim at so-called “right to work” laws across the US.