The Illinois Green Party supports the John Deere strike and stands with the 10,000 workers at twelve plants that span Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas.
As a Fortune 100 company which has seen record profits in 2021, John Deere can afford to equitably compensate workers, as the company’s nearly $ 5 billion in profits in 2020 has been earned on the backs of these Midwestern workers. Instead, the company’s CEO, who makes 220 times that of the median Deere worker, has seen his salary increase from $6 million in 2019 to $15.6 million in 2020. “The workers deserve a lot more than what the company is offering them,” said AJ Reed, Co-Chair of the Illinois Green Party, “It speaks volumes when a corporation like Deere does not value their workers, yet they tout themselves as a caring company in the communities they operate in. John Deere has been a significant employer in Western Illinois and to provide the workers less than what they deserve is a slap in the face to the communities and workers they rely on. Deere needs to stop thinking of their workers as a commodity and instead share the fruits of their labor and provide for their needs, because an injury to one is an injury to all.”
The ILGP encourages all strike supporters to donate to the strikers GoFundMe at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-john-deere-strike