The Teamsters and Anheuser-Busch, the country’s largest brewer, announced late Wednesday that they had reached a tentative agreement on a contract that the union and the company said includes strong wage gains and significant protections for job security.
Without a deal, the Teamsters union’s 5,000 members had been poised to strike Friday against the company’s 12 breweries across the country, which make Bud Light, Budweiser, Michelob Ultra, Stella Artois and other brands of beer.
“Teamsters make the beer, Teamsters make Anheuser-Busch successful, and our members deserve the best contract. That is what we fought for and won today,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said in a statement Wednesday.
Brendan Whitworth, CEO of Anheuser-Busch, said in a statement that the company is “incredibly pleased to have reached a tentative agreement that continues to recognize the talent, dedication, and hard work of our teams, while also positioning the Company for long-term success. … As America’s leading brewer, we have the best people and provide the best jobs in the beer industry.”
Union members will now have an opportunity to review the contract and vote on whether to approve it. The new tentative agreement was recommended unanimously by the Teamsters’ bargaining committee. If members reject the deal, though, workers could still go on strike.
The Teamsters said the deal includes a wage increase of $8 per hour over the length of the five-year contract, including an immediate $4-per-hour raise in the first year. That amounts to an average wage increase of 23 percent over the duration of the contract.
The deal also includes significant job security protections for all union workers, the union said — a core demand for Teamsters, as the company had shed union workers over the years. The union and the company did not specify the type of job security workers would receive, though.
Under the contract, workers would receive a $2,500 ratification bonus, increased pension contributions and the restoration of retirement benefits for current and retired members, the union said. And the company will end its two-tier health-care plan, the union said, where some workers receive worse benefits.
The new contract agreement arrives amid a period of heightened labor activism in the United States, buoyed by a booming job market and rising popularity for unions. In 2023, American workers led 33 major strikes — defined as those involving at least 1,000 workers — the most in more than two decades, according to Labor Department data released this month.
Union workers have been securing contracts with double-digit raises with strikes and even mere strike threats over the past year. Some 340,000 UPS employees — who are also Teamsters members — won a new contract last year that some labor experts described as the best for workers in UPS history, including nearly 50 percent raises over five years for part-timers.
The Teamsters said Anheuser-Busch agreed to meet in Washington on Wednesday for the first time in weeks to try to hash out a deal before the midnight strike deadline Friday.
Later Wednesday, Teamsters leader O’Brien said in a statement that the company had provided a modified offer that “continues to ignore many of the Teamsters’ key issues.” The parties reached the tentative agreement later in the day when the company put forward another offer.
In December, thousands of Anheuser-Busch Teamsters members voted to authorize a strike — with 99 percent in favor.
Teamsters members at Molson Coors in Fort Worth have also been on strike over wages since Feb. 17.
Michael Silva, principal officer of Teamsters Local 919, which represents some 500 Anheuser-Busch workers at its brewery in Houston, said this week that he had been particularly concerned about job security. His facility has been around for decades and provides jobs for multiple generations of families, though it has lost union jobs over the years.
“Our numbers have slowly dwindled. Some of that has to do with automation,” Silva said. “No one should be in fear of not having a job.”
As the beer giant has automated and consolidated parts of its operations over the years, thousands of good-paying Teamsters jobs have been lost, labor and supply chain experts say — a deindustrialization process which can push local economies into recession. In 2022, Anheuser-Busch sold off a distribution plant in Oakland, Calif., eliminating more than 140 Teamsters jobs.
Patrick Penfield, professor of practice in supply chain management at Syracuse University, said Anheuser-Busch InBev, the Belgium multinational beer company that owns the U.S. brewing operations, excels at cost-cutting with new technologies and automation.
“It’s all about efficiency and automation at Anheuser-Busch,” Penfield said. “They acquire companies, bring them into the fold and then look at how they can become more efficient and do more with less … It’s ‘can we produce the same amount of beer with less breweries?’”
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