USA: SABMiller risks work stoppage

According to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, workers at three SABMiller Plc U.S. plants may strike as negotiations over the brewer's health plan stall, potentially affecting beer delivery in cities including New York, Bloomberg released July 13.

The Teamsters are telling Miller Brewing Co. beer distributors in six cities that a strike involving 1,400 brewers, bottlers and warehouse employees, almost 25 percent of Miller's workforce, is “imminent,'' the union said July 13, without giving more details on when a walkout may occur.

SABMiller, which brews Miller Lite and Genuine Draft beers in the U.S., rejected a Teamster health-care plan that would have saved the London-based company $13.5 million without cutting benefits, Jack Cipriani, director of the Teamsters Brewery and Soft Drink Workers Conference, said in a statement.

Negotiations at the three plants, located in Eden, North Carolina; Fort Worth, Texas; and Irwindale, California, began earlier this year and the employees are working under a contract extension, the Teamsters and SABMiller said.

The brewer wants workers to pay a ``sizeable monthly contribution'' for health care, the Teamsters said last month, without being specific.

Pete Marino, a spokesman for Milwaukee-based Miller Brewing, said negotiations with the Teamsters were continuing this week and the company had a contingency plan if a strike occurs. He said the Teamsters are voting in Texas and North Carolina on July 16.

“We remain hopeful that an agreement that is satisfactory to all workers will be reached,'' Marino said. He declined further comment on the contract negotiations or the contingency plan.

Teamsters spokesman Galen Munroe declined to comment on the negotiations because the union is at a “sensitive stage'' in the process, he said.

Shares of SABMiller, which makes Pilsner Urquell and Peroni Nastro Azzurro beers, fell 27 pence, or 2.8 percent, to 955.5 pence at 4:35 p.m. in London July 13. The stock has dropped 9.9 percent this year.

Workers last struck against Miller Brewing in 1995 at a plant in Albany, Georgia, said Marino. The U.S. brewer merged with SAB Plc in 2002 to create SABMiller, which has seven plants, 6,000 employees and 700 distributors in the U.S. Miller represents about 16 percent of the company's operating profit.

The Teamsters represent more than 1.4 million workers in the U.S. and Canada. The cities that may be affected by a strike are Milwaukee, Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Minneapolis.