United Auto Workers’ Deere work force voted for six years of certainty by approving a new contract that covers 10,000 workers at 12 plants in Iowa, Illinois and Kansas.

Reporting in the Des Moines Register discloses pay raises of 37 cents to 56 cents per hour in the first year, with annual hourly pay increases “roughly the same” through 2021. Pay increases will average about 17 percent over the six years and are intended to narrow Deere’s two-tier wage gap agreed to in the 1990s.

Neither the company nor the union release vote totals. But the Waterloo Courier reports the largest Deere bargaining group, UAW Local 838 in Waterloo, rejected the agreement with 67 percent voting “no.”

The labor contract secures a measure of certainty for a company that has laid off 1,400 since 2014 and is adjusting to face declining demand. It also provides certainty against still-rising health care costs.

Health care costs and international product demand involve factors beyond the union workers’ and the company’s control. Those factors reflect economic and political forces that pressure most American companies.

We’re glad to see the company and its organized workforce chart a six-year course to assure futures for the folks who built Deere’s reputation for reliability and innovation, along with all of those combines, tractors and other products.

And we’re glad to see the contract also assures the company will not close any of the covered plants through 2021.