Unionized/worker-owned/co-op breweries and brewpubs

Weihenstephan is state-owned, hence communist beer.

 

New Belgium is EE owned.

 

AB Inbev is Union here in StL I believe

 

Full Sail is employee-owned.

 

The only "craft" brewery that I've ever heard of being organized is the Mad River Brewing Co., Blue Lake, Calif. which had a IAMAW (Machinists) contract. Not sure if it's still the case.

BBC's Cincinnati brewery (formerly Hudepohl-Schoenling) still has 3 contracts in effect according to their Annual Report, but the unions aren't named. And I imagine most of the rest of the pre-Pro breweries around are still organized, save for Yuengling in Pottsville which decertified a few years back (I think Tampa is still organized, though).

AB has long been organized, with Teamster contracts (the Teamsters absorbed the old Brewery Workers in the 1970's, after years of conflict) and the Miller plants are a mix of IBT, UAW and IAM. Coors, of course, is famously non-union but there were still a few smaller craft unions in Golden with contracts even after the 1970's strike and decert- so the current MillerCoors depends on the brewery.

Brewing in the pre-Craft era was one of the first major US industries that was considered essentially 100% organized.

(From memory. Haven't kept up with things as far as this topic goes since my "involuntary retirement" - if anyone's got any specifics, let me know via a private Beer Mail conversation if the thread gets deleted -- as they often do on this subject).

 

Boxer from Canada is Union made, says it right on the package to.

 

i believe Dogfish Head gives their employees shares in the company.

 

Isn't Boxer brewed in the US? Minhas Brewing Co., Monroe, WI (formerly Huber), which is owned by Canadians.

 

Eh whatever, I have just seen it around didn't do an all out investigation on this place mate.. just have seen it in passing. haha

 

Nice thinking.... Logical too

 

Here is a list that is maintained on a union website. I'm not sure how up to date it is:

http://www.unionplus.org/union-made/beers

It's not a very appealing range.

 

As a newbie to the site, just curious why this topic tends to get nuked?

 

A very small minority of people on this site think that unions are not good for this country anymore and it is a very politically driven issue.

I happen to agree with 5thOhio who had his post deleted because he feels a certain way about the subject, yet those on the other side are free to voice their opinions all day long even linking union websites to this one.

These are two reasons the thread should have been nuked, but for some reason it has not been.

 

I don't think the OP was cheerleading unionism; it seemed like a dispassionate, somewhat academic question. Responses have been mostly the same.
Jmo

 

I too am on 5thOhio's side. Thanks to the organized labor movement neither one of my kids was elegible to help the family financially working at Keegan Ales after school as third shift fermenter cleaners when they were 9 years old, and we really could have used the extra money.

 

Sad that this is such a divisive issue. I have to admit I am slightly biased in my opinion. I am in a Union and proud of it. I hope that this thread does not get deleted simply because I think it could turn out to be an interesting thread if people could keep the petty politics out of it.

 

Thanks for clearing things up. I guess as long as my beer doesn't come from a sweat shop, I'm good. Besides, that would just be gross. Though, possibly still tastier than pages from a book.