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John Deere Laying Off 600 Workers in Flagship Dubuque Factory for Mexico

35 points by alephnerd 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
downrightmike 2y ago
Everywhere is a terrible place to work because the companies don't give a shit. Its bullshit they want access to sell in our market, but aren't employing Americans, especially for being Deere.
- ramesh31 2y ago
  You can draw a straight line from NAFTA to MAGA. But nobody in charge cares, as it's been great for our 401ks. The pitchforks are coming, and it's not gonna be pretty. January 6th was just a taste.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    The alternative is allies like Canada and Mexico decide to switch allegiances without NAFTA - especially because they have FTAs with economies like China, ASEAN, and the EU. Also the economic ramifications on the US would be horrid. The answer is subsidizing the ability to commercialize R&D with PLIs aimed at keeping some production within the US (or allies). This is what the CHIPS Act and IRA are doing for Semiconductors and GreenTech respectively.
    - ramesh31 2y ago
      > The answer is subsidizing the ability to commercialize R&D with PLIs aimed at keeping some production within the US (or allies). This is what the CHIPS Act and IRA are doing for Semiconductors and GreenTech respectively. Yes that is indeed the correct take on this if you see our society as an optimization problem on a spreadsheet. But tell it to the 600 voters (and all of their family/friends) who just got laid off from jobs they've held for 30 years and staked their entire lives on. All of our previously purple states have turned into fascist hellholes due to this kind of attitude from those in power.
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        CAT's factories are barely 2 hours away from John Deere's and they haven't had a similar layoff in almost a decade. John Deere's leadership is just uniquely incompetent in the agtech industry.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  They ain't selling enough, with worldwide sales decreasing rapidly [0]. The tractor industry has become commoditized at the lower market segments with Kubota, Kioti, and Mahindra, and the upper market segments are too specialized for John Deere with competitors like CAT. Ik some friends in the drone and agtech industry in the 2010s, and John Deere was already far behind on the innovation front compared to Bayer-Monsanto, Corteva, CAT, Skydio, or DJI on applications like agricultural drones, autonomous farming, CV applications for soil analysis, etc. The answer is simple - innovate (or M&A) or die. [0] - https://www.deere.com/assets/pdfs/common/news/deere-2q24-earnings-release.pdf https://www.deere.com/assets/pdfs/common/news/deere-2q24-ear...
  - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
    Nice to see their anti-consumer business practices are blowing up in their face. Imagine how well their sales would be if they hadn't made an enemy out of their customer base.
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      Their harsh IP stance would have made sense if they were also constantly innovating. They just weren't. You were paying a premium and facing litigation for tinkering with a better branded Kubota. John Deere was also nowhere near as diversified as most competitors locally (CAT) and globally (Kubota), who invested in defense, construction, drones, EVs, chemicals, and other segments.
      - unregistereddev 2y ago
        I'd question a few of your claims. Deere has an entire construction division and it's huge. Deere has had its hands in the defense industry for decades - they sell military gators, guidance systems for predator drones, etc. They've had electric gators and lawn tractors for a few years now (admittedly they're late electrifying their larger equipment). I don't know where your information is from, but it seems patently incorrect.
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  High worker wages and cheap goods are incompatible. The companies can’t do anything especially since places with cheap labor can now put out mid to high quality tier goods themselves. For a while it seemed like Germany et al were able to maintain a moat with their high quality goods but Asia has caught up. The only hope for American manufacturing is fully automated facilities but that isn’t happening quickly enough. Alternatively we would have to have some sort of communist like top down profit sharing/UBI but I don’t see the US going down that path either.
  - matrix87 2y ago
    > cheap goods john deere isn't known for being cheap
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - dyauspitr 2y ago
      Which is why their sales are falling. My point is it needs to be cheaper to be competitive and they can’t seem to do that while still manufacturing in the US.
      - toomuchtodo 2y ago
        They had $10B in 2023 profits. This is simply not true. They are maximizing profits at the cost of other business inputs, just like Boeing.
        alephnerd 2y ago
        You can make a profit and still lose market share Here's John Deere's Q2FY25 earnings report [0] Sales have dropped 10-20% in just about every market they are in (they have hidden the Asia figures which are probably even worse due to intense competition by dozens of local and multinational competitors like Sinomach, Kubota, Mahindra, Daedong, etc). And overall Net Sales have fallen 20-25%. [0] - https://www.deere.com/assets/pdfs/common/news/deere-2q24-earnings-release.pdf https://www.deere.com/assets/pdfs/common/news/deere-2q24-ear...
- threatofrain 2y ago
  That's how most trade works, isn't it? If I buy clothing from the EU, does that mean they must make it in the US? Forcing domestic employees is normally for vital functions.
  - colechristensen 2y ago
    Trade between equal-ish partners is fine and should be free and unencumbered except for a few things where you want to make sure you're also self-sufficient (like defense and ensuring your local food production can cover your population) Trade between unequal partners (or whatever you want to call companies offshoring manufacturing) needs friction. Some amount is good to equalize global economies, too much makes your local poor suffer for the benefits of your local wealthy. It is especially bad when offshored labor is being done to avoid local environmental restrictions, worker protections, etc. i.e. manufacturing which is only cheap by being irresponsible to your workers and the world.
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      The winners in this case are Japanese (Kubota), American (CAT, AGCO, New Holland/CNH), European (CNH, Kioti), and Indian (Mahindra) manufacturers - all diversified conglomerates from countries allied or aligned with the US.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Trade works however we collectively, through policy, make it work. Neoliberals were telling everyone it’d be fine to offshore manufacturing, because there was plenty of other high value work to be done, and then surprise, that gets offshored too. Corporations would sell you for parts of it earned an extra penny per share. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHUGVEThmsg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHUGVEThmsg > The company [John Deere] brought in $2.37 billion in net income during the quarter, down from $2.86 billion in the same period last year. Worldwide net sales and revenue also decreased 12% quarterly. > In 2023 the company made more than $10 billion in profit.
matrix87 2y ago
Maybe we should all move to Mexico then, I'm sure the government won't mind, so long as corporations get to do whatever they want
- gruez 2y ago
  For what purpose? Given how many people are literally dying to sneak into the US and live an undocumented existence (ie. menial jobs paid under the table), I'm going to go on a limb and say even the bottom decile of Americans are better off staying here than trying to sneak into Mexico. Maybe you want to move to Cancun (and continue working your remote desk job) for a few months as some sort of protest against the corporations/government, but it's not a prudent or even realistic option for most people.
  - matrix87 2y ago
    Mexico has the same big metros like the US does, just look at Monterey and CMX > but it's not a prudent or even realistic option for most people. It may not be right now. But at the current rate of letting corporations do whatever the fuck they want, I wouldn't hesitate to do it if it makes economic sense. And if it ever gets to that point, shame on the US government > I'm going to go on a limb and say even the bottom decile of Americans are better off staying here than trying to sneak into Mexico. Citation needed. A lot of the people who enter illegally aren't even originally from Mexico. Also the economic climate of the US has changed since the 20th century
    - gruez 2y ago
      >Mexico has the same big metros like the US does, just look at Monterey and CMX The claim isn't that mexico doesn't have any big cities, it's that it's not an attractive place to live in compared to the US, as evidenced by migrant flows. >It may not be right now. But at the current rate of letting corporations do whatever the fuck they want, I wouldn't hesitate to do it if it makes economic sense. And if it ever gets to that point, shame on the US government What makes you think the same pro-corporate forces won't happen to Mexico, when the state there can barely keep a lid on drug cartels, and in fact the ruling party accepted bribes from drug gangs? https://www.propublica.org/article/mexico-amlo-lopez-obrador-campaign-drug-cartels https://www.propublica.org/article/mexico-amlo-lopez-obrador... >Citation needed. A lot of the people who enter illegally aren't even originally from Mexico. Also the economic climate of the US has changed since the 20th century https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/nationwide-encounters https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/nationwide-encounters There's 515k encounters from people with mexican nationality. I doubt the reverse direction has anywhere near that amount.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
analognoise 2y ago
Imagine you already live in aplace like Illinois, and you think well, at least I'm cheaper than somebody in California so I'll be employed. Then after the company makes 10 billion dollars last year, they decide to cut 600 whole people in Illinois just to take a little extra profit in a move to Mexico. Fuck these absolute parasites in charge; they do not care at all about American anything and we should be penalizing them for caring so little. This is a bunch of horse shit.
- gruez 2y ago
  >Imagine you already live in aplace like Illinois, and you think well, at least I'm cheaper than somebody in California so I'll be employed. Did you forget what happened to Detroit and the rest of the rust belt back in the 2000s? Being slightly cheaper than California was never going to protect you from competition from Mexico or Asia. >Then after the company makes 10 billion dollars last year, they decide to cut 600 whole people in Illinois just to take a little extra profit in a move to Mexico. When you're working at the scale of a multinational company with $61 billion in revenue and 83k employees, every single decision is going to be like this. Sure, you could easily fund that one factory with 600 employees with a tiny fraction of your overall profits, but you probably have dozens of such factories. You can't keep all of them, and there's no reason to privilege any particular factory.
- drewcoo 2y ago
  > Imagine you already live in aplace like Illinois, > decide to cut 600 whole people in Illinois Do you think all the Deere employees live across the Mississippi in East Dubuque, IL? Not likely. Dubuque is in Iowa. Iowa thanks you for your concern about our Illinoisan neighbors, costal people!
  - analognoise 2y ago
    Hehe thank you I’ll edit that. Guess I can’t. Either way, same sentiment stands. Fuck these people.
foogazi 2y ago
The shareholders will not be denied

35 points by alephnerd 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Everywhere is a terrible place to work because the companies don't give a shit. Its bullshit they want access to sell in our market, but aren't employing Americans, especially for being Deere.

ramesh31 2y ago
You can draw a straight line from NAFTA to MAGA. But nobody in charge cares, as it's been great for our 401ks. The pitchforks are coming, and it's not gonna be pretty. January 6th was just a taste.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  The alternative is allies like Canada and Mexico decide to switch allegiances without NAFTA - especially because they have FTAs with economies like China, ASEAN, and the EU. Also the economic ramifications on the US would be horrid. The answer is subsidizing the ability to commercialize R&D with PLIs aimed at keeping some production within the US (or allies). This is what the CHIPS Act and IRA are doing for Semiconductors and GreenTech respectively.
  - ramesh31 2y ago
    > The answer is subsidizing the ability to commercialize R&D with PLIs aimed at keeping some production within the US (or allies). This is what the CHIPS Act and IRA are doing for Semiconductors and GreenTech respectively. Yes that is indeed the correct take on this if you see our society as an optimization problem on a spreadsheet. But tell it to the 600 voters (and all of their family/friends) who just got laid off from jobs they've held for 30 years and staked their entire lives on. All of our previously purple states have turned into fascist hellholes due to this kind of attitude from those in power.
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      CAT's factories are barely 2 hours away from John Deere's and they haven't had a similar layoff in almost a decade. John Deere's leadership is just uniquely incompetent in the agtech industry.
alephnerd 2y ago
They ain't selling enough, with worldwide sales decreasing rapidly [0]. The tractor industry has become commoditized at the lower market segments with Kubota, Kioti, and Mahindra, and the upper market segments are too specialized for John Deere with competitors like CAT. Ik some friends in the drone and agtech industry in the 2010s, and John Deere was already far behind on the innovation front compared to Bayer-Monsanto, Corteva, CAT, Skydio, or DJI on applications like agricultural drones, autonomous farming, CV applications for soil analysis, etc. The answer is simple - innovate (or M&A) or die. [0] - https://www.deere.com/assets/pdfs/common/news/deere-2q24-earnings-release.pdf https://www.deere.com/assets/pdfs/common/news/deere-2q24-ear...
- kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
  Nice to see their anti-consumer business practices are blowing up in their face. Imagine how well their sales would be if they hadn't made an enemy out of their customer base.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    Their harsh IP stance would have made sense if they were also constantly innovating. They just weren't. You were paying a premium and facing litigation for tinkering with a better branded Kubota. John Deere was also nowhere near as diversified as most competitors locally (CAT) and globally (Kubota), who invested in defense, construction, drones, EVs, chemicals, and other segments.
    - unregistereddev 2y ago
      I'd question a few of your claims. Deere has an entire construction division and it's huge. Deere has had its hands in the defense industry for decades - they sell military gators, guidance systems for predator drones, etc. They've had electric gators and lawn tractors for a few years now (admittedly they're late electrifying their larger equipment). I don't know where your information is from, but it seems patently incorrect.
dyauspitr 2y ago
High worker wages and cheap goods are incompatible. The companies can’t do anything especially since places with cheap labor can now put out mid to high quality tier goods themselves. For a while it seemed like Germany et al were able to maintain a moat with their high quality goods but Asia has caught up. The only hope for American manufacturing is fully automated facilities but that isn’t happening quickly enough. Alternatively we would have to have some sort of communist like top down profit sharing/UBI but I don’t see the US going down that path either.
- matrix87 2y ago
  > cheap goods john deere isn't known for being cheap
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - dyauspitr 2y ago
    Which is why their sales are falling. My point is it needs to be cheaper to be competitive and they can’t seem to do that while still manufacturing in the US.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      They had $10B in 2023 profits. This is simply not true. They are maximizing profits at the cost of other business inputs, just like Boeing.
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        You can make a profit and still lose market share Here's John Deere's Q2FY25 earnings report [0] Sales have dropped 10-20% in just about every market they are in (they have hidden the Asia figures which are probably even worse due to intense competition by dozens of local and multinational competitors like Sinomach, Kubota, Mahindra, Daedong, etc). And overall Net Sales have fallen 20-25%. [0] - https://www.deere.com/assets/pdfs/common/news/deere-2q24-earnings-release.pdf https://www.deere.com/assets/pdfs/common/news/deere-2q24-ear...
threatofrain 2y ago
That's how most trade works, isn't it? If I buy clothing from the EU, does that mean they must make it in the US? Forcing domestic employees is normally for vital functions.
- colechristensen 2y ago
  Trade between equal-ish partners is fine and should be free and unencumbered except for a few things where you want to make sure you're also self-sufficient (like defense and ensuring your local food production can cover your population) Trade between unequal partners (or whatever you want to call companies offshoring manufacturing) needs friction. Some amount is good to equalize global economies, too much makes your local poor suffer for the benefits of your local wealthy. It is especially bad when offshored labor is being done to avoid local environmental restrictions, worker protections, etc. i.e. manufacturing which is only cheap by being irresponsible to your workers and the world.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    The winners in this case are Japanese (Kubota), American (CAT, AGCO, New Holland/CNH), European (CNH, Kioti), and Indian (Mahindra) manufacturers - all diversified conglomerates from countries allied or aligned with the US.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Trade works however we collectively, through policy, make it work. Neoliberals were telling everyone it’d be fine to offshore manufacturing, because there was plenty of other high value work to be done, and then surprise, that gets offshored too. Corporations would sell you for parts of it earned an extra penny per share. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHUGVEThmsg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHUGVEThmsg > The company [John Deere] brought in $2.37 billion in net income during the quarter, down from $2.86 billion in the same period last year. Worldwide net sales and revenue also decreased 12% quarterly. > In 2023 the company made more than $10 billion in profit.

matrix87 2y ago

Maybe we should all move to Mexico then, I'm sure the government won't mind, so long as corporations get to do whatever they want

gruez 2y ago
For what purpose? Given how many people are literally dying to sneak into the US and live an undocumented existence (ie. menial jobs paid under the table), I'm going to go on a limb and say even the bottom decile of Americans are better off staying here than trying to sneak into Mexico. Maybe you want to move to Cancun (and continue working your remote desk job) for a few months as some sort of protest against the corporations/government, but it's not a prudent or even realistic option for most people.
- matrix87 2y ago
  Mexico has the same big metros like the US does, just look at Monterey and CMX > but it's not a prudent or even realistic option for most people. It may not be right now. But at the current rate of letting corporations do whatever the fuck they want, I wouldn't hesitate to do it if it makes economic sense. And if it ever gets to that point, shame on the US government > I'm going to go on a limb and say even the bottom decile of Americans are better off staying here than trying to sneak into Mexico. Citation needed. A lot of the people who enter illegally aren't even originally from Mexico. Also the economic climate of the US has changed since the 20th century
  - gruez 2y ago
    >Mexico has the same big metros like the US does, just look at Monterey and CMX The claim isn't that mexico doesn't have any big cities, it's that it's not an attractive place to live in compared to the US, as evidenced by migrant flows. >It may not be right now. But at the current rate of letting corporations do whatever the fuck they want, I wouldn't hesitate to do it if it makes economic sense. And if it ever gets to that point, shame on the US government What makes you think the same pro-corporate forces won't happen to Mexico, when the state there can barely keep a lid on drug cartels, and in fact the ruling party accepted bribes from drug gangs? https://www.propublica.org/article/mexico-amlo-lopez-obrador-campaign-drug-cartels https://www.propublica.org/article/mexico-amlo-lopez-obrador... >Citation needed. A lot of the people who enter illegally aren't even originally from Mexico. Also the economic climate of the US has changed since the 20th century https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/nationwide-encounters https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/nationwide-encounters There's 515k encounters from people with mexican nationality. I doubt the reverse direction has anywhere near that amount.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

analognoise 2y ago

Imagine you already live in aplace like Illinois, and you think well, at least I'm cheaper than somebody in California so I'll be employed. Then after the company makes 10 billion dollars last year, they decide to cut 600 whole people in Illinois just to take a little extra profit in a move to Mexico. Fuck these absolute parasites in charge; they do not care at all about American anything and we should be penalizing them for caring so little. This is a bunch of horse shit.

gruez 2y ago
>Imagine you already live in aplace like Illinois, and you think well, at least I'm cheaper than somebody in California so I'll be employed. Did you forget what happened to Detroit and the rest of the rust belt back in the 2000s? Being slightly cheaper than California was never going to protect you from competition from Mexico or Asia. >Then after the company makes 10 billion dollars last year, they decide to cut 600 whole people in Illinois just to take a little extra profit in a move to Mexico. When you're working at the scale of a multinational company with $61 billion in revenue and 83k employees, every single decision is going to be like this. Sure, you could easily fund that one factory with 600 employees with a tiny fraction of your overall profits, but you probably have dozens of such factories. You can't keep all of them, and there's no reason to privilege any particular factory.
drewcoo 2y ago
> Imagine you already live in aplace like Illinois, > decide to cut 600 whole people in Illinois Do you think all the Deere employees live across the Mississippi in East Dubuque, IL? Not likely. Dubuque is in Iowa. Iowa thanks you for your concern about our Illinoisan neighbors, costal people!
- analognoise 2y ago
  Hehe thank you I’ll edit that. Guess I can’t. Either way, same sentiment stands. Fuck these people.

foogazi 2y ago

The shareholders will not be denied