Workers at Molson breweries are filing grievances over what they consider the last straw in curtailed benefits: a cutback in free beer.
You can cut hours. You can cut pay. You can cut health coverage. But you better leave my beer alone.
That’s the message Molson workers sent to management when the company announced it will no longer provide free beer to the company’s 2,400 retirees and will cut current workers’ allotment of suds.
Retirees at the company plants in New Foundland and Labrador were receiving up to 72 bottles a month gratis. That number will be scaled down to zero over a period of five years — just so nobody has to kick the habit cold turkey.
Things really came to, uh, a head when the company also informed current staffers that their annual allowance will drop from 864 free bottles a year to the miserly amount of 624 bottles a year.
Bill Bavis, who retired after 32 years with company, told reporters: “There was no consultation. We just received a letter that this is a done deal, which is totally unfair. I think with the economic downturn they’re trying to take advantage of us, as a way to cut retirees’ benefits and justify it.”
A Molson representative said the cutback would save the company about %1 million a year. But has anyone considered the incalculable effects on morale?
