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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 18, 2017)
PAGE 20 | August 18, 2017 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS ...Union-made beer From Page 1 employers, but to support union workers — and to use our buy- ing power to send a market sig- nal favoring “high-road” enter- prises. The expectation is that union-made goods are made by workers who are paid fair wages and benefits, and have rights and dignity on the job. Production workers at the Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis, Missouri, for example, get $31.94 an hour under their union contract, plus health and pension benefits, paid vacation and sick days, and two free cases of beer per month. Today’s U.S. beer industry is dominated by two unionized or mostly-unionized giants, with hundreds of almost-totally- nonunion craft brew competitors nipping at their heels. The giants are responding to the craft threat by buying up craft competitors, and by devel- oping in-house varieties known as “crafty” beers. AB Inbev has acquired 10 regional craft beer companies in the last six years, grouping them in its “High End” division. Molson Coors groups its half-dozen craft acquisitions in its “Tenth and Blake” divi- sion. In each case, the craft ac- quisitions came with nonunion production facilities that con- tinue to produce the brands they produced prior to purchase. So by and large, craft beers owned by the big unionized companies are still produced nonunion. Beer company ownership structures can get pretty compli- cated. In 2015, the world’s biggest beer company, AB In- bev, announced a deal to buy the world’s second biggest beer company, SAB Miller, for $107 billion. The U.S. Department of Justice — responsible for en- forcing the “antitrust” laws that are supposed to prevent monop- oly — approved the merger, but on condition that AB Inbev sell U.S. rights to the SAB Miller brands to another company. That was achieved when Molson Coors paid $12 billion for SAB Miller’s stake in their joint ven- ture, MillerCoors. AB Inbev AB Inbev is the world’s biggest beer company. The AB stands for Anheuser Busch, but today it’s a foreign-owned corporation headquartered in Leuven, Bel- gium and Sao Paulo, Brazil. In the United States, AB Inbev owns 12 “mega-breweries,” all willing to look: Bottles of union- made Miller beer do say “UNION MADE” in fine print. Pabst A century ago, union-made beer car- ried a union-made label. of which are union-represented by the Teamsters. Those 12 breweries are responsible for producing all of the company’s nationally-distributed mass- market beers. That means all va- rieties of the following brands purchased anywhere in the United States were made by union members at these 12 breweries: Budweiser, Busch, Michelob, Natural Light, Rolling Rock, and Shock Top. The 12 breweries also produce several of AB Inbev’s “foreign” beer labels for the U.S. domestic market — Beck’s, and Foster’s. And it has a contract with a Japanese beermaker to produce Kirin for the U.S. market. Molson Coors Of the seven megabreweries Molson Coors now owns out- right, five are union-represented and two are nonunion. Workers at its breweries in Irwindale, California, and Fort Worth, Texas, are represented by the Teamsters. At its Trenton, Ohio, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, breweries, workers are repre- sented by United Auto Workers (UAW). And at its Albany, Geor- gia, brewery, workers are repre- sented by International Associa- tion of Machinists. Its Golden, Colorado, and Elkton, Virginia, breweries are nonunion. Alto- gether, Molson Coors employs about 2,400 union members — about 28 percent of its U.S. em- ployees. But the fact that some plants are union and some nonunion makes it very tough to know whether the beer you see in a grocery store or bar is union- made. Blue Moon Belgium White is produced only at the two nonunion plants, and Kil- lian’s Irish Red is produced only at the nonunion Golden plant. But all seven Molson Coors breweries produce Miller Lite and Miller High Life, while all but the Milwaukee and Trenton plants produce Coors Light. Hamm’s is produced by one nonunion plant and three union plants. One helpful fact for those Among the big beer companies, Pabst occupies a unique place: It’s a beer company that con- tracts out the making of its own beer. For the most part, Pabst beers are brewed under contract by Molson Coors, but since two of the seven Molson Coors breweries are nonunion, the same uncertainty applies to Pabst-owned beers that applies to Molson Coors beers. A Pabst spokesperson told the Labor Press “many” of Pabst’s beers are made by union workers, but provided no real specifics. A spokesperson for Molson Coors said confidentiality provisions in its contract brewing agreements prevent the company from pub- licizing which brands they pro- duce or which breweries they utilize. Lagunitas Craft brewer Lagunitas — a wholly owned subsidiary of Heineken as of May 2017 — is unionized at its Chicago brew- ery, which employs 95 members of Teamsters Local 727. Their 10-year first-time union contract runs through April 2024 and specifies wages from $10 to $32 an hour, health benefits, a 401(k), and workplace rights. But Lagunitas’ Petaluma, Cali- fornia, brewery, which produces for the Western region, is nonunion. ‘UNION MADE’ AB INBEV BECK’S BUD LIGHT BUDWEISER BUSCH FOSTER’S MICHELOB NATURAL LIGHT O’DOULS ROLLING ROCK SHOCK TOP KIRIN ‘UNION MAYBE’ MOLSON COORS COORS BANQUET COORS LIGHT EXTRA GOLD LAGER HAMM’S ICEHOUSE KEYSTONE ICE KEYSTONE LIGHT LEINENKUGEL’S MILLER GENUINE DRAFT MILLER LITE MILLER HIGH LIFE MILLER 64 MILWAUKEE’S BEST Mendocino Brewing Mendocino Brewing Co. makes Butte Creek organic beers and Talon Double IPA. Fourteen workers at it Ukiah, California, plant are represented by Team- sters Local 896 in a contract that runs through July 31, 2018. But its beers are also made at a nonunion facility in Saratoga, New York. It’s owned by an In- dian businessman who lives in the U.K. Genesee Brewing Workers at the Genesee Brewing plant in Rochester, New York, are represented by Teamsters Local 118. Genesee is a sub- sidiary of North American Breweries, which is owned by FIFCO Florida Ice and Farm Company S.A., a Costa Rican food and beverage company. PABST BEERS PABST BLUE RIBBON RAINIER OLYMPIA COLT 45 OLD MILWAUKEE SCHLITZ LAGUNITAS LAGUNITAS IPA LAGUNITAS IMPERIAL STOUT MENDOCINO BREWING BUTTE CREEK ORGANIC RED TAIL AMBER ALE GENESEE BREWING GENESSEE
