Deere & Company said in a press release that the United Auto Workers (UAW) union have informed them that its members have ratified the new six-year master labor agreement with the company.
Many workers though are still not satisfied with the new labor contract, which was held on Sunday at the McLeod Center on the University of Northern Iowa campus.
A 19-year old employee at Deere's Westfield Avenue site in downtown Waterloo told WCF Courier that the new agreement has drawn compliments and complaints among the rank and file workers, but didn't have any doubts about how the vote will go.
"I've been through a few of these, and they always say 'I'm gonna vote no' or 'this is terrible,' but it always goes through," he said.
WCF Courier adds that another young man, who walked out of the McLeod Center, voted against the agreement.
"There's still a lot of separation between the old guys and the new guys," he said.
Calvin Zanders, a worker who was laid off from Deere's Tractor Cab Assembly operation in October 2014, told WCF Courier that he showed up to examine the deal.
He said that he had a "call-back rights" and wanted to see if the new agreement would be worth it to come back to Deere and leave his new job.
Zanders told the WCF Courier that he wasn't impressed with the new agreement.
"That's the same thing they did six years ago," he said. "When you look at it, they didn't really do them any justice."
The new agreement was tentatively agreed upon on October 1, 2015, by Deere and UAW, according to the press release.
The agreement required a ratification vote from UAW members to formalize the agreement.
WCF Courier adds that the new deal, which takes effect on Monday, Oct. 5, 2015, has a basic minimum hourly pay rate that ranges from $16.335 to $25.980 and tier upward that will be based on seniority.
The range of the minimum pay will increase to $19.140 - $28.585 by Oct. 5, 2020.
WCF Courier adds that the range pay includes rates for the Continuous Improvement Pay Plan.
It is a plan that provides a team of employees with incentive compensation for achieving continuous improvement on a weekly basis above the base performance metrics.
One member told WCF Courier that he voted against the deal because of the health care agreement, saying "it's not a good deal."
Another said that "The co-pays are going up a little bit, but nothing to stress out too much."
The co-payments for doctors and hospital visits are set to go up twice during the duration of the contract, on Jan. 1, 2016 and midway through the deal, from 2019 through 2021, according to WCF Courier.
The complete terms of the agreement will not be made public.
