Le Mars, Iowa — With more than ten-thousand John Deere workers on strike as of Thursday morning, Deere dealerships across Iowa are shifting gears for the long haul.
Curt Christoffel, store manager of the Le Mars Agri-Vision farm equipment dealership, says this strike has long been rumored so they were able to prepare.
Christoffel says because of COVID-19, there have been previous challenges with suppliers getting the needed equipment. Plus, he says the Quad Cities-based company had a back-up strategy.
Christoffel says if they need to obtain a specific part, the dealership may remove that part from a machine that’s already sitting in an inventory lot.
He doesn’t anticipate this strike to last as long as the previous strike in 1986 which ran for 156 days. In terms of new equipment orders, Christoffel says John Deere will manufacture the sold equipment first, and produce stock equipment second, and he doesn’t think costs will increase much due to the strike. Agri-Vision has 16 locations throughout southern and western Iowa.
