In 2018, I wrote a story for Splinter about the craft brewing industry’s vexingly low density of labor unions. Workers I spoke with back then were frustrated about low pay, bad or nonexistent healthcare benefits, strenuous and unsafe working conditions, and so forth. I got what reporters call a “money quote” from a frustrated pro-union craft brewer in the Pacific Northwest. “There are people making money here,” he told me. “But it’s not us.”
A lot has changed since then. For one thing, Splinter got shut down, then resurrected, which may be why my byline is no longer on the story in question. For another, the craft brewing boom is well and truly over. Many of the craft brewery owners that did big business in 2018 are clinging to their businesses in 2024 — or have already shuttered them. There are still people making money in the industry, no doubt, but gone are the salad days of the second craft beer boom. One thing that really hasn’t changed in the last half-dozen years, not at a meaningful scale at least, is the industry’s union density. Despite it all — the low salaries, the widespread discrimination, the f*cking pandemic — I can still count the number of unionized craft breweries across the country on two hands. I’ve written about the reasons for this many times before, and I will not rehash them here. The fact of the matter is, the overwhelming majority of craft brewery workers remain without unions at a time when they’d most benefit from them.
The labor movement wisdom is to organize while the going is good so you’ve got protection when it gets tough. That window has clearly closed for the craft brewing industry’s workers, but the work remains. People still want to drink beer, flavored malt beverages, non-alcoholic and fourth-category stuff… etc. Without union contracts, the brewery workers who helped build craft brewing are more vulnerable to being boxed out of its future. Here, the logical extension of the old labor saw comes to mind: The best time to organize for better working conditions is before shit goes bad; the second-best time is before shit gets worse.
The recent spate of macrobrewer divestments from the segment has been illuminating in this regard. This year is shaping up to be “the final chapter in ‘corporate craft’ era of American brewing,” as Jeff Alworth wrote at Beervana earlier this week, arguing that the unholy marriage between artisanal and corporate brewing was in the stage of “divorce” that calls for divvying up the assets. Those assets in motion include Elysian Brewing Company’s Airport Way location in Seattle (slated for closure by Anheuser-Busch InBev last week); Wicked Weed’s Cultura and Funkatorium facilities in Asheville (abruptly shuttered by ABI on Nov. 1); Leinenkugel’s venerable 157-year-old brewery in Chippewa Falls, Wis. (slated for closure by Molson Coors the day after Election Day); nearly all of MC’s Tenth & Blake portfolio (pawned off on Tilray brands in August at a $41.1-million loss); and Lagunitas’s Chicago plant (slated for closure by Heineken USA in May). Constellation Brands, to its limited credit, got out of the segment last year; Pabst never really got into it. That accounts for all five of the United States’ largest brewers by volume. They coopted, they commoditized, they cut bait.
In a tough market, cutting to improve the bottom line is the name of the game, and labor is easy fat to trim when there’s no union around to say otherwise. At non-union 10 Barrel Brewing Company, for example, Tilray slashed the entire innovation staff — many of whom had celebrated their new bosses just a year prior by unfurling a big banner that read “now with less Anheuser-Busch!” At Wicked Weed’s Funkatorium and Cultura locations, both of which were also non-union, around 40 workers were called back to work to begin writing menus and prepping for post-hurricane reopening before being abruptly laid off earlier this month. “It’s going to be a difficult winter for a lot of people,” Funkatorium’s prep cook told the Asheville Citizen-Times.
Those pink-slipped workers get whatever the bosses see fit to give. Sometimes, this includes a generous severance and extended health care benefits. (Such was reportedly the case at Wicked Weed, where ABI offered some severance and six months of healthcare.) More often, it includes vague references to job transfers, placement services, “assistance with the transition,” or nothing at all.
Consider the contrast at Elysian and Leinenkugel, where workers are represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the union that represents thousands of brewery workers (mostly at macrobreweries) across the country. Matt McQuaid, a Teamster with Local 662 in Wisconsin, tells Hop Take that the union is currently in talks with Molson Coors with an eye toward securing severance and benefits packages for the ~45 affected union workers. His counterpart Paul Zilly at Local 117 says that in bargaining sessions this past week, the union had “negotiated an agreement, which includes severance for the [30] unionized workers and resolves all outstanding issues.” He didn’t respond to a follow-up request for more details. Neither ABI nor MC responded to Hop Take’s request for comment.
Consider the contrast at Elysian and Leinenkugel, where workers are represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the union that represents thousands of brewery workers (mostly at macrobreweries) across the country. Organizers with Locals 117 in Washington and 662 in Wisconsin tell Hop Take that they’re currently in talks with the respective parent companies, with an eye toward securing severance and benefits packages for the affected workers; neither ABI nor MC responded to Hop Take’s request for comment.
Note what I’m not saying here. I’m not saying unions can fix all the inequities of the brewing industry, or even that they always get the goods for the laid-off workers they represent. Theirs is an uphill battle, particularly against a counterparty with effectively limitless resources. At Anchor Brewing Company, for example, new billionaire owner Hamdi Ulukaya appears to have effectively stonewalled the International Longshore & Warehouse Union Local 6’s urging to rehire the long-suffering members of Anchor Brewing Union. Compare that to the situation at Fair State Brewing Cooperative, which went into and emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy with its UNITE HERE Local 17-repped union intact (and with a new CBA as of August 2024, no less). The potential outcomes are varied and vast, and unions can’t guarantee the best one for craft breweries’ workers. But when it’s a multinational corporation on the other side of the bargaining table, they can be helpful for preventing the worst one.
This is not an especially inspiring way to frame it, I know. The reality is that the American labor movement has been a tale of grinding defeat punctuated by brief moments of victory for longer than I’ve been alive. The recent groundswell of popular support for unions has done very little to reverse that trend, and that organizing the Biden administration made slightly less difficult will get much harder under a second Trump administration. All of these factors, combined with the American brewing industry’s recent downturn, are pulling against brewery workers who want to exercise their rights to bargain collectively with their coworkers. All of those things are true.
And yet. The beverage-alcohol business is not going away. There are still people making money in it. Workers deserve their fair share in good times and bad, and they have no better tool available to them than unions to demand it. The options for brewery workers now are: leave the industry, leave your livelihood to chance, or organize. Better to do it before your craft brewery is sold and the pink slips start flying than after. But given the way things are going, probably worse not to do it at all.
🤯 Hop-ocalypse Now
Nobody really knows how broad or deep Constellation Brands’ exposure to the incoming Trump administration’s threatened tariffs runs yet, only that it’s probably bigger than any other beverage-alcohol conglomerate’s. (Which is why I think it’s so bizarre that the firm decided to play with fire this election cycle.) Of course, that won’t stop bank analysts from pondering the publicly traded macrobrewer’s prospects in a mass deportation-fueled Mexican-American trade war. This dynamic has already produced some grotesque observations. For example, the Masters of the Universe at RBC Capital Markets issued an otherwise-unremarkable investor note last week that contained the callous assessment that “individuals who could likely be deported are most likely to be in the lower-income strata that STZ has less exposure to.” Don’t worry, folks, your Constellation returns are probably safe. The people in the cages are too poor to drink Modelo!
📈 Ups…
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. is doing pours of its coveted Celebration IPA spin-off called Celly Drippins at its Mills River, N.C. taproom today only… Congratulations to Threes Brewing’s new head brewpub brewer, Josh Penney… Don’t look now, but craft beer’s dismal performance in Circana off-premise scans continued to improve over the last four weeks…
📉 …and downs
Sapporo-Stone Brewing is yanking Stone exports off shelves in all 50 of its international markets… Breweries in Chicago say a proposed per-gallon tax hike of 34 percent would “hinder” pandemic recovery…
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