Deere Clinches Tentative New UAW Pact
October 01 2015 - 04:10AM
Dow Jones News
Deere & Co. said it has reached a tentative agreement with
the United Auto Workers Union on a six-year contract to replace a
pact that expired Thursday.
Deere, the world's largest seller of farm tractors and
harvesting combines, didn't release details of the agreement. The
union is expected to schedule a ratification vote for Sunday. The
Moline, Ill.-based company and the union have been negotiating
since August.
The UAW represents about 10,000 manufacturing workers at a dozen
plants, mostly in Iowa and Illinois. Deere is facing a
significantly weaker business conditions than the last the time the
company and the union negotiated a contract in 2009.
After years of expanding production and plants to meet rising
global demand for farm equipment, Deere's sales are down 25% over
the past three quarters from a year earlier, and profit is off
54%.
Lower prices for corn, soybeans and other crops are squeezing
farmers' incomes in North America, dampening their interest in
buying new equipment.
Meanwhile, in Brazil, a key growth market for Deere and other
machinery manufacturers, higher interest rates and a recession are
holding down equipment sales.
Write to Bob Tita at robert.tita@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 01, 2015 03:55 ET (07:55 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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