WASHINGTON—This week, UAW members from the Agricultural Implements sector took to Capitol Hill to raise the alarm on the devastating impact of bad trade deals, and fight layoffs and plant closures across the agricultural implements and construction equipment sector.
Since 2023, John Deere has laid off hundreds of workers and offshored multiple products from Iowa to Mexico. Caterpillar (CAT) operates three major manufacturing facilities in Mexico, with rampant labor abuses, driving a race to the bottom. And this month, CNH announced plans to close its Burlington, Iowa plant after nearly a century of operations.
“The American taxpayer and the American worker have invested millions of dollars and decades of blood, sweat, and tears to make these companies what they are today,” said UAW Vice President Laura Dickerson, Director of the Agricultural Implements Department of the UAW. “To take that investment and kill American jobs to pay off Wall Street is a slap in the face to American workers, consumers, and taxpayers. DC needs to step up and stop corporate greed.”
“Executives at these companies think that the devastation of plant closures, lost jobs, broken homes, and the destruction of blue-collar communities are not their problem,” said UAW Region 4 Director Brandon Campbell, “But the UAW is going to make these decisions a major problem for these corporations and their Wall Street buddies. We’re in Washington, D.C. this week to make their corporate greed a problem for politicians across the Midwest—regardless of if they are a Democrat or Republican.”
UAW members in D.C. met with the offices of Representatives Eric Sorensen (D-IL-17), Nikki Budzinski (D-IL-13), Ro Khanna (D-CA-17), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA-1), and Ashley Hinson (R-IA-2). They also met with the offices of Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Joni Ernst (R-IA), and Roger Marshall (R-KS). In addition to the members of Congress, workers also met with staff from the Department of Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
In their meetings, UAW members laid out three core demands for how to better navigate the offshoring of midwestern jobs by corporate greed:
- Make it here to sell it here. UAW members are calling for the Commerce Department to launch a new Section 232 investigation into imports of heavy equipment and machinery.
- End the race to the bottom. UAW members are demanding the United States Trade Representative to prioritize protections for heavy equipment manufacturing in the July 2026 review of the USMCA, including strong Rules of Origin, tariff rate quotas, and a sectoral minimum wage.
- Job security. UAW members are demanding members of Congress pick a side and make sure Deere, CAT, and CNH return production from abroad and stop the layoffs, offshoring, and plant closures.
“American manufacturers, built on American values, are making decisions every day to close and move plants without looking at the people and families that they are impacting,” said Marcques Derby, UAW Local 807 Chairperson at CNH in Burlington, Iowa. “Politicians have a real say. Most of them take campaign contributions from companies that are offshoring good jobs held by their constituents. It’s our elected officials that need to utilize their voice—we elected them for that, didn’t we?”
In addition to this week’s lobbying efforts, hundreds of UAW members from across the U.S. recently submitted stories about the devastation of so-called “free trade” and the urgent need for a worker-centered transformation of our trade deals. The UAW International also submitted an extensive comment calling for transformative changes to North American trade policy that put the international working class first, ahead of corporate interests, which can be viewed here. The UAW will be making trade and the fight against mass layoffs and plant closures a major focus of our 2026 electoral efforts heading into the midterm elections to win for UAW members and the whole working class.
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