...UNION BEER
(From Page 12)
sin and by members of UAW in Mil-
waukee.
Pabst Brewing Company
The red-white-and-blue label says
“Established in Milwaukee, 1844.” It
should also say, “left town, 1996.”
Pabst Brewing Company calls itself the
largest American-owned brewery —
because its larger competitors AB In-
Bev and SABMiller are foreign-
owned. But that’s only half true. Pabst
is American-owned — by a Greek-
born billionaire who lives in Connecti-
cut. But it’s not a brewery. It’s a collec-
tion of over 30 beer trademarks and
secret recipes, plus marketing and
sales. In the 1980s and 1990s, Pabst
bought up a succession of beloved local
breweries, closed them, and contracted
out brewing to other companies. Today
the company headquarters is in Los
Angeles. The original Pabst brewery,
closed in 1996, is now a LEED-Plat-
NLRB says 41 employees
in Macy’s cosmetic dept.
can unionize with UFCW
P ROUDLY S ERVING
P ORTLAND W ORKERS
F OR O VER 32 Y EARS
A group of 41 employees working
in the cosmetics and fragrances depart-
ment of a Macy’s store in Saugus, Mas-
sachusetts, can form a union, the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board ruled last
month.
Macy’s challenged a petition by
United Food and Commercial Workers
Local 1455 for a union election among
the cosmetic department at the store.
Macy’s contended that the smallest
appropriate unit must include all 150
employees at the Saugus store or, at
least, all 120 sales employees at the
store. In a 3-1 decision issued last
month, the NLRB said the workers at
the store are an appropri-
ate bargaining unit and
share “a community of in-
terest.”
There is no bargaining
history at the Saugus
store, though UFCW Lo-
cal 1455 and Macy’s have
two collective-bargaining
agreements covering em-
ployees at six other
Macy’s stores.
Macy’s said it is con-
sidering its options, in-
cluding an appeal.
inum-certified seven-block mixed-use
development in downtown Milwaukee.
And Pabst beer brands are brewed,
packaged and shipped by competitor
Miller-Coors, in a contract that extends
to June 2020.
So it’s a double irony that Pabst
Blue Ribbon experienced a resurgence
among younger drinkers in the last
decade who adopted it as a marker of
working class authenticity. Pabst is the
leading outsourcer of its industry, a
beer company that makes no beer. And
in the city where it was born, it’s con-
sidered “beer non grata” for closing up
shop and trying to skip out on its pen-
sion obligations on the way out of
town.
Pabst’s brand portfolio includes
many national and regional beers:
Schlitz, Old Milwaukee, Rainier,
Olympia, Stroh’s, Lone Star, Colt 45,
and St. Ides. So when Pabst brands ap-
pear on a union-made list, it’s because
some of the facilities that make Pabst
beers are union-represented, including
the UAW-represented Miller-Coors
brewery in Milwaukee.
Contract Brewers
The Labor Press also found several
unionized contract breweries, which
brew beers on contract for other com-
panies. City Brewing Company owns
the former Latrobe brewery (which
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
Union Craft Breweries:
Good Luck
Beer sales as a whole are actually
declining in the United States. Older
drinkers are turning to wine. Younger
drinkers are increasingly consuming
distilled spirits. But one category of
beer has experienced rapid growth, and
that’s the craft beer segment that began
among home brewers and small inde-
pendent microbreweries. Today, craft
beer accounts for about 7 percent of
U.S. beer sales. Unfortunately for
would-be drinkers of union-made beer,
craft beer is almost entirely nonunion.
The Labor Press was able to iden-
tify just one unionized craft brewery:
Mendocino Brewing Co., which makes
Butte Creek organic beers and Talon
Double IPA in Ukiah, California.
Eugene passes paid sick leave ordinance
In a 5-3 vote July 28, Eugene City
Council became the second Oregon city
to pass a paid sick leave mandate for
private employers. The vote was in de-
fiance of an unprecedented attempt by
the Lane County Commission to ob-
struct the city council.
Similar to the Portland ordinance
that took effect in January, the Eugene
ordinance requires employers, starting
July 1, 2015, to grant one hour of paid
sick leave for every 30 hours worked,
up to 40 hours a year. It applies to all
employees who perform work inside
Eugene city limits, regardless of where
their employer is headquartered. Unlike
Portland’s, the Eugene ordinance man-
dates paid sick leave for employers of
all sizes, not just those with more than 5
employees. The Eugene ordinance
makes exceptions for other public em-
ployers, and for members of building
trades unions, who may work for multi-
ple employers, and yet have equivalent
CLARIFICATION: In an article on the U.S.
Supreme Court ruling in Harris v. Quinn in the July
18, 2014, edition, Labor Press readers might have
concluded that Portland labor attorney Gene Me-
chanic advised SEIU Local 503 on the case, or was
speaking on behalf of Local 503. That’s not the case.
Mechanic has represented Local 503 on other cases,
and is a knowledgeable source about public sector la-
bor law, but didn’t provide a legal opinion on this case
for Local 503. Also, ambiguity in the same paragraph
AUGUST 1, 2014
originated Rolling Rock) in Latrobe,
Pennsylvania, which employs mem-
bers of Communications Workers of
America. It also has a brewery in
LaCrosse, Wisconsin, where workers
are represented by the Teamsters.
Teamsters also represent employees of
the Minhas Craft Brewery in Monroe,
Wisconsin; the Matt Brewing Com-
pany in Utica, New York; and the
Genesee Brewing Company in
Rochester, New York. Genesee brews
its own line of beers as well as other
brands.
benefits provided through trusts.
The ordinance was sponsored by
Eugene City Council members Claire
Syrett and Alan Zelenka, and councilors
George Brown, Betty Taylor, and Greg
Evans voted for it. Councilors Mike
Clark, George Poling and Chris Pryor
voted against it. Mayor Kitty Piercy
also supports the ordinance.
The vote faces a legal fight because
Lane County on July 21 — a day be-
fore a public hearing on the Eugene or-
dinance — voted 3-1 to approve three
resolutions that aim to pre-empt any
city in the county from passing any or-
dinance mandating employment condi-
tions, including wages and benefits.
Commissioner Faye Stewart, Jay
Bozievich and Sid Leiken voted for the
measures, and Commissioner Pat Farr
voted against them. The vote was taken
while Commissioner Pete Sorenson,
who supports paid sick leave, was out
of town.
might have led readers to attribute to Mechanic the
statement that “the decision means that union con-
tract fair share provisions would be unenforceable in
Oregon and other states.” Mechanic didn’t make that
statement, and would have put it differently, namely,
that the decision creates a situation where the anti-
union National Right to Work Legal Defense Foun-
dation could argue that such provisions are unen-
forceable in Oregon and other states. The Labor Press
regrets any confusion.
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