The ol' Labor Day two-fer
A ~curated selection~ of the boozeletter’s labor-focused coverage from the archives
Happy Labor Day, Fingers Fam! I’m taking the day off, and I hope you’re able to, as well. In addition to this special podcast playlist to entertain you on your holiday travels, below you’ll find a ~curated selection~ of the boozeletter’s labor-focused coverage about the beverage-alcohol industry from the archives.
As a laborer myself, I depend on reader support to earn a living, so if you haven’t yet, please consider buying subscription to fund my independent journalism on drinking in America. I’m running a one-day only sale, don’t miss it:
If you’re looking for more recent analysis on the labor movement’s intersection with the drinks business, check out my most recent column at VinePair, published this past Friday. Here’s a taste:
Macrobrewing executives at the top of the industry have been no great friends to unions of late, don’t get me wrong. But thanks to Jack Welch and the rest of the Masters of the Universe who remade American corporations into singular Molochs of shareholder return, we’ve come to expect a certain extractive ghoulishness from the C-suites of publicly traded firms these days. Workers, being both expensive and prone to occasionally imagining more for themselves than a life of forever toil, have been an obvious target for both pragmatic and ideological reasons. There’s a reason pro-union sentiment and corporate profits are both hitting historic highs at the same time: American workers are realizing they’ve been fleeced by decades of anti-labor propaganda from the suits, and they want their f*cking money back.
Craft brewing was supposed to be different, man. Owners made their bread for three decades in part on claiming to be everything that Big Beer wasn’t. They cared about the environment! They cared about the community! They didn’t even wear suits! When it comes to labor relations, though, the anti-corporate segment has tended to prove the old labor organizer’s creed: a boss is a boss is a boss.
As I’ve noted before, my work at Fingers is vital to my work at VinePair, and vice-versa, so when you buy a subscription, you’re kinda getting a two-fer on independent, adversarial, worker-focused journalism about the booze industry. Wow, what a deal! Thanks to all the Friends of Fingers who already underwrite this work with their hard-earned beer money. If you haven’t yet, you know what to do. Up the drinks, up the workers. Happy Labor Day, Fingers Fam.
Woodford Reserve fucked around and found out
Earlier this week, a federal labor judge ruled that the Woodford Reserve bourbon brand violated labor law when it busted a 2022 union drive at its Kentucky distillery. Now, it must bargain with the union anyway.
How the Death & Co union drive collapsed
In early November, workers at Death & Co’s flagship location in Manhattan’s East Village went public with a drive to organize the iconic cocktail bar as Death & Co Workers United (D&CWU). The world-renowned bar, birthplace of now-iconic cocktails like the
Inside the union drive at Death & Co
Editor’s note: I was planning to resume our normal publishing schedule after last week’s special report on Armed Forces Brewing Co., but then workers at one of the country’s most important cocktail bars went and unionized, so here we are. The coverage below is in the public interest, so I’m publishing it without a paywall. For those reading Fingers for free,
Up the drinks, up the workers
On Friday, the Beer Institute, the United States brewing business’s biggest and most important trade group, sent out an email blast “toast[ing] the nearly 2.4 million men and women currently employed by the U.S. beer industry.” Which is nice!
Boutique whiskey, "eat shit" wages
Ben Ullrich had only been working at Stranahan’s Distillery for about six months when he realized he was getting stiffed. “They had brought on a couple of new folks who got hired at a higher rate” to do similar work, the distiller told Fingers in a recent phone interview, speaking after a shift
Tired: "craft brewery." Wired: "beer factory."
Anders Bloomquist, a part-time packaging worker at the Twin Cities' Fair State Brewing Cooperative who is also organizing across Minnesota's craft beverage sector with UNITE HERE Local 17, spoke to Fingers earlier this year about an union drive he was working on at a Duluth craft distillery, and why he believes the sector is primed for more organizing.
Craft beer's Creatures go union
Earlier this month, workers at Creature Comforts Brewing Company in Athens, Georgia, went public with a drive to organize the maintenance, taproom, and production departments under the newly minted, fully independent Brewing Union of Georgia. Nearly two weeks later, the company has yet to recognize the union, instead hiring a notorious management-side law firm and disseminating common union-busting talking points to its ~120-person staff.
"Workers have to really want this for this to happen"
Listen now (43 mins) | You know how like 200 Starbucks stores have unionized since that first one in Buffalo did back in December 2021, and over 100 of those 200 all struck in unison on Red Cup Day this year because the company—which is one of the biggest private employers in the U.S. by the way—refuses to bargain with its workers in good faith and has actually fired scores of them just for exercising their federally protected right to organize on the job? What’s going on there?
"I don't think it's going to work out for the corporation at this particular shop."
Listen now (32 mins) | You know how earlier this year, Heaven Hill workers went on a six-week strike against their employer, which is one of the largest bourbon distilleries in Kentucky, and therefore the world? Well, about 2.5 hours to the south, across the Tennessee state line, workers at a very small whiskey distillery with a very big corporate overlord took notice. Here’s the deal.
The country's biggest bourbon strike in years just ended. Now what?
Editor’s note: To support original reporting on the booze business, labor, and beyond, please consider buying a Fingers subscription: Thanks for supporting independent journalism.—Dave.
Striking against "corporate greed" at Kentucky's biggest bourbon distillery
Editor’s note: For more original reporting on the booze business, labor, and beyond, please consider purchasing a subscription to Fingers now: Thanks for supporting independent journalism.—Dave
How the Twin Cities became a hotbed for craft beverage unionizing
For Labor Day 2021, I reported on the groundswell of labor-organizing momentum in Minneapolis-St. Paul, where UNITE HERE Local 17 had spent the first year of the pandemic working on union drives at the metro's breweries, distilleries, and third-wave coffee shops.
"They were dumping money into these events, and every time they did, boycotters would show up."
Please support this independent journalism about drinking in America with a paid subscription to Fingers: Interviews are exclusively for paying Friends of Fingers. Thanks for reading!—Dave.
"You’re always going to be the underdog."
In the aftermath of bitterly contested, ultimately failed union drives at the Twin Cities' Surly Brewing Co. and Spyhouse Coffee, I spoke with workers about lessons learned.
Arise, Surly workers
In 2020, workers at Surly Brewing Co.'s Minneapolis restaurant organized with UNITE HERE Local 17. I reported on the drive and the company's dismal response to it.