John Deere and the UAW. Driving to Moline.

A lousy two-tier pension system.

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Moline is a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Chicago.

With a population of 43,977 in 2010, it is the largest city in Rock Island County.

Moline is one of the Quad Cities along with neighboring East Moline and Rock Island. Davenport and Bettendorf are on the other side of the Mississippi River in Iowa.

It is the corporate headquarters of John Deere along with several production facilities.

A John Deere tractor is a beautiful thing to behold.

When I see one at a county fair I swoon. Really.

To me it is a piece of art as beautiful as a Brancusi.

10,000 workers who make John Deere equipment went on strike last Friday.

Tomorrow, Monday, Anne and I will take a drive out to Moline to show support for the strikers.

When we get there, we will stop to pick up some pop and a couple of pizzas to bring to the picket line.

Many issues that need to be resolved between the UAW and John Deere before there is a contract and nobody is saying how long it will take.

It is harvest time in the Midwest.

That’s not a good time for a John Deere to have its workers on strike.

Farmers need their broken equipment repaired with parts right now.

From everything I’m reading, Deere workers are pissed off at the way they, like workers everywhere, have been treated during the pandemic.

Corporations have made out like bandits while the workers have been treated like shit.

Workers are angry that Deere CEO John May made nearly $16 million this year.

That’s 220 times more than the median company salary of $70,743. May’s pay was up from $6 million the year before, based on the company’s financial performance.

But the anger has roots that go back before the pandemic.

In 1997 the UAW leadership bargained a two-tier contract and a two-tier pension system.

I know something about how bad that is because the Illinois legislature did the same thing to teachers.

In some ways this strike is a repudiation of the UAW leadership and memories of that 1997 deal.

When the latest contract as tentatively agreed to by the UAW negotiators was presented to the membership, it was rejected by 90 percent of the vote.

We’ve been through the worst pandemic in a hundred years.

People aren’t afraid to say no anymore.