Workers who make Bud Light and other top-selling beers are threatening to strike in demand of significant wage increases, job security and improvements to retirement and benefits in the first big union contract battle of 2024.
Five thousand workers, represented by the Teamsters at 12 Anheuser-Busch breweries in the US, are threatening to strike after voting 99% in favor of a strike authorization last month. Their current union contract is set to expire on 29 February.
“Without a contract by February 29, there won’t be any beer come March,” the Teamsters warned on X.
The contract fight is the first at Anheuser-Busch with the Teamsters president, Sean O’Brien, at the helm of the union. Elected in 2022, O’Brien led the union in securing record contract gain at UPS last year amid threats of a massive strike.
“If Anheuser-Busch’s executives can’t get their act together to negotiate an agreement that respects workers, we will see them out on the streets,” O’Brien said in a statement on the strike vote. According to the Teamsters, the union hasn’t met with Anheuser-Busch since 16 November, when the company refused to negotiate on job security.
Anntonette Norris, who has worked at the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Jacksonville, Florida, for 25 years, said workers were due for a substantial wage increase in the new contract as wages have lagged behind inflation and price increases.
“When I started, Anheuser-Busch was what you would consider the top dog, it was the job to have. The pay was great, but with inflation, we are not the top-paying job,” she said.
Norris said her brother had started working at Anheuser-Busch in the last five years. “Things that would have been easily attainable to me when I started, are not that for him now,” said Norris. “With the increases of prices for everything, people are working numerous amounts of overtime to try to make up for the pay we don’t have at this time.”
Workers face intense heat during summer weather and intense cold during the winter, said Norris. They sacrifice time away from families to work night shifts and handle dangerous, hi-tech equipment.
“It’s a great product to enjoy out in the market, but it’s a big sacrifice to make that product,” Norris added. “Anheuser-Busch wants to be No 1 in the beer industry, then they should want the No 1 group of employees working for them, who are proud to work for them and who are being compensated like it. We just want a fair and great contract that we feel that we are long overdue for.”
Anheuser-Busch brews some of the best-selling beer products on the US market, including Budweiser products, Michelob Ultra, Busch and Stella Artois, with US breweries in Baldwinsville, New York; Cartersville, Georgia; Columbus, Ohio; Fairfield, California; Fort Collins, Colorado; Houston, Texas; Jacksonville, Florida; Los Angeles, California; Merrimack, New Hampshire; Newark, New Jersey; St. Louis, Missouri, and Williamsburg, Virginia.
Parent company AB InBev makes around a quarter of all beer drunk globally and reported profits of over $32bn in fiscal year 2023, a 1.97% increase from 2022. The increase came despite a slump in US sales following a conservative-driven boycott over a social media promotion with Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer. The company announced a $1bn stock buyback program in October 2023 over the next year and launched a sponsorship campaign with the UFC in the same month valued at over $100m.
Angel Arroyo, 53, has worked at Anheuser-Busch’s brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado, for 20 years. He said that wages at the brewery had fallen behind compared with other businesses in the area.
“Twenty years ago, Anheuser-Busch was one of the top-paying businesses here in Colorado. Unfortunately, with the concessions we made throughout the years, a two-tier in medical benefits and slight wage increases, we really let Anheuser InBev get a stronghold on the work we’ve accomplished,” said Arroyo. “We’re looking for job security. We’re looking for the American Dream,” he said. “We need to share in our profits and we need to bring up the working class better than it was before.”
Arroyo said the 99% strike authorization vote sent a message that workers are sticking together to demand what’s due to them. The last contract reached in 2019 included only $2.50 in wage increases over five years and included higher medical benefit costs for new employees.
“Even our younger employees who aren’t so well versed in unions are getting on board. They see what the future holds. They’ve seen their parents struggle and I think now they’re realizing that’s not the life they want,” added Arroyo.
A spokesperson for Anheuser-Busch said in response to the strike authorization vote and contract negotiations with the Teamsters: “Anheuser-Busch is aware of the Teamsters’ strike authorization vote, which is common during labor negotiations. We have a long-standing track record of reaching agreements with organized labor and look forward to resuming negotiations to reach a mutually acceptable agreement that continues to recognize and reward our employees.”
