Two John Deere plants in Iowa will close in the next three years, the company announced on the day after the election, and lay off around 700 workers.
Deere announced on Wednesday, Nov. 4, that it would be closing two Iowa factories due to “changes in customer demand and available manufacturing capacities.”
The company will close the Ottumwa Works factory, which has built the company’s hay equipment since 1910, by 2028.
Windrower production jobs will be the first to go, moving to Des Moines Works by 2027. Round baler jobs will move to its Ankeny plant by 2028.
Four hundred Ottumwa workers will be laid off, according to Ottumwa city officials.
Deere will also close its Hagie Manufacturing plant in Clarion by 2029. The plant has built sprayers since the 1940s and was bought by Deere in 2020.
Hagie STS sprayers will then be manufactured at a Deere plant in Louisiana, and the Louisiana plant’s sugar cane harvester manufacturing would move to Brazil.
Around 300 workers will lose their jobs in Clarion.
United Auto Workers, which represents workers at Deere plants around the US, said in a statement Wednesday it was “disgusted by John Deere’s latest attack on the working class of Iowa,” and promised to fight to prevent the layoffs when contract negotiations begin again next year.
