5 Beer Brands Could Soon Be Hard to Find

Drinkers of Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, Busch, and Stella Artois might have to test another brand. "Without a contract by February 29, there won't be any beer come March," the Teamsters union, representing 5,000 workers at 12 Anheuser-Busch breweries in 11 states, has warned after workers voted 99% in favor of authorizing a labor strike. The current contract, secured in 2019, included $2.50 in hourly wage increases over five years, per the Guardian. Workers are now demanding higher wage increases as well as improved pension contributions and job security assurances. The union says Anheuser-Busch hasn't returned to the negotiating table since Nov. 16, two months after bargaining began, when workers refused to budge on job security.

"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," Teamsters President Sean O'Brien, who secured what he called "the best contract in the history of UPS" for 300,000 Teamsters members last year, said after the vote last month. "We just want a fair and great contract that we feel that we are long overdue for," Anntonette Norris, who has worked at the brewery in Jacksonville, Florida, for 25 years, tells the Guardian. She says wages have fallen behind inflation and "people are working numerous amounts of overtime to try to make up for the pay we don't have." They do this in intense heat and cold and while handling dangerous equipment, she adds.

Levi Kovari, a brewer in Fort Collins, Colorado, tells HuffPost workers have suffered a reduction in work hours due to the recent Bud Light boycott, which led the brand to fall from its position as top-selling beer. "We're really fighting for job security," adds DJ Edwards, a filler operator at the Jacksonville brewery. "We need to know they're committed to keeping breweries open and keeping us employed." Anheuser-Busch says it "look[s] forward to resuming formal negotiations to reach a mutually acceptable agreement that continues to recognize and reward our employees," per HuffPost. (More Anheuser-Busch stories.)