More layoffs are expected later this year - despite John Deere raking in over $10 billion in profit in 2023 while also paying CEO John May $26.7 million in total compensation.
A longtime John Deere worker at the Harvester Works plant in East Moline, Illinois, told The Guardian it comes down to one thing: Greed.
Many of the company's dozens of factories in the US are the largest employers in small Midwest towns, making it especially devastating when dozens or even hundreds of people are suddenly out of job and don't have many places to turn.
Chris Laursen, 53, is one of the workers who decided on an early exit and said he worries about towns across the US that are reliant one big employer like Ottumwa is.
'[For] a lot of these communities, like mine in Ottumwa, losing John Deere would be an extremely big loss. It's a town of 28,000, and the only other manufacturing is a pork processing facility, so it doesn't leave a lot of options for jobs,' Laursen told the Guardian.
He said he believes John Deere sees Mexico as a cheap source of labor with the added benefit that it can import steel there for much cheaper and sell products built with that steel back to the American market.
John Deere has said the years long move to Mexico can be attributed to rising manufacturing costs.
The layoffs come after 10,000 unionized John Deere workers went on strike for five weeks in October 2021.
The strikes were among the most prominent during 'Striketober', where thousands of workers from Nabisco, Kellogg's, McDonald's and others walked out for weeks or even months to protest low pay in the wake soaring company profits.
Striking John Deere employees won a 10 percent raise for hourly earners, increased retirement benefits and the maintaining of the health insurance program that workers don't have to pay premiums for.
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