MSWA has endorsed Will Lehman’s campaign for UAW president. For more information, visit
Supporters of Will Lehman, who is running for president of the International Union of Automobile Workers, campaigned last weekend among workers at farm and heavy equipment giant John Deere. Lehman, who works for Mack Trucks in Pennsylvania, is calling for the abolition of UAW bureaucracy, the transfer of power to workers on the shop floor and the development of a network of rank-and-file committees to fight for workers’ interests. .
Deere workers reacted with interest to Lehman’s campaign program, and those who were familiar with it strongly supported it. “I’ve been following him, he’s a good candidate for president,” a worker at Deere’s North American parts distribution center in Milan, Illinois, told the campaign. “I’ve talked to people at work about him. He has my voice.
“I’ve voiced my opinion at work about how I feel about the current president and vice presidents,” the employee added. “They know I’m angry. I couldn’t believe their lies during the debate. What Will says is true.
“I think Will is doing a good job,” said Zion, a young worker at Deere Harvester Works in East Moline, Ill. “We need someone to step up in the union to give us a chance to have equal rights. I’m right behind you, Will.
Campaigners for Lehman released a statement to Deere workers that he released Sept. 22 explaining his platform and addressing the UAW’s betrayal of the 2021 strike by Deere’s 10,000 workers.
“2021 was the year workers began saying, ‘No more concessions!” – Lehman said in a statement. “When the first two tentative agreements were returned, UAW Vice President Chuck Browning and other officials, who they claimed had made ‘significant gains,’ the workers responded, ‘This must be a joke.’ The agreements were completely divorced from what the workers demanded, including much higher wage increases and restoration of retiree health care.”
Following in the footsteps of Volvo Trucks workers who rejected three contracts backed by the UAW bureaucracy last year, Deere workers voted against two UAW-approved contracts, the first by 90 percent.
!!!Lehman continued in his statement:
!!! Seeing that the SRA bureaucrats would not fight for you, the workers began to organize themselves, forming rank-and-file committees, including the Deere workers’ rank-and-file committee. These committees played a crucial role in providing information and viewpoints during the strike, countering the lies of the company, its media, and the union bureaucracy, and urging workers from other companies to mobilize in support.
The Deere workers’ struggle received strong support internationally, with Deere workers in Germany and elsewhere expressing their solidarity with the struggles of their brothers and sisters in the United States. Lehman, pointing to the enormous potential power that such solidarity reveals, placed the need for international unity among workers at the center of his campaign, calling for support from the International Labor Union of rank-and-file committees.
Nevertheless, virtually every Deere worker with whom campaigners spoke over the weekend expressed their opposition to the final agreement and their desire to continue the strike, contrary to the attempts of UAW executives such as Vice President Chuck Browning to present their 2021 sales contract as “the best in decades.
“That was what I voted against,” said one Harvester worker. “I was willing to go another round even though I was broke.” She said she had not heard anything about Thursday’s UAW presidential candidates’ debate, which the UAW bureaucracy actually sought to hide from workers. When she was told that current UAW President Ray Curry had been compensated more than $2 million since 2004 from his positions in the office, she exclaimed in shock: “Shut up!”
Other Deere employees spoken to by the campaign also had not heard of the UAW presidential candidates’ forum broadcast on Sept. 22, at which Lehman discussed longtime bureaucrats such as the current Ray Curry and Sean Fain. The UAW staff effectively tried to keep the debate a secret from workers, hoping to prevent them from seeing an open challenge and condemnation of the bureaucracy.
“What do I get out of my dues?” – A third combine worker asked. “I don’t have a problem with union membership, but what do I get out of my dues? I still have a shitty contract. It’s my contract, but I had no say in it at all.”
Referring to the 2015 contract, when the UAW published limited “highlights” of the contract and forced workers to vote on the spot, he said: “Yes, I believe there was fraud. There was corruption. They dragged us into the high school, read us some things and wanted us to sign right here and now.”
The worker, who had just been hired at Harvester and was working two jobs, spoke angrily about the seven-month probationary period that was retained in the contract pushed through by the UAW. “You don’t get leave until after a year. You get unexcused absences, but they count against you. And you don’t get any union representation, even though you still pay dues.”
“Inflation is tearing us apart,” said Pamela, a labor veteran. Describing the effects of the pace of work on workers’ bodies, she continued: “People rush because they’ve made us rush. Now they have tendonitis or shoulder problems because they just don’t get a break.”
Many other Deere workers were angry about the UAW machine and its indifference to their needs.
“I don’t like the current management that sits up there,” said one worker. “All the problems that have been there with corruption and bribery, we have to get rid of them from the top down!”
Another Harvester worker, initially skeptical about the possibility of implementing campaign demands for substantial wage increases and the restoration of retirement benefits, reacted enthusiastically when he heard Lehman call for putting rank-and-file workers in power and abolishing the UAW’s corrupt bureaucracy. “It will make me vote for him, and everyone in this plant will vote for him. If he puts an end to corruption, if he’s not for sale. If that’s what he’s about, he’s my man, I’ll vote for him.”
