Kmflett's Blog

It’s more than time for a trade union in craft beer

This week has seen a number of posts on Insta and Twitter and a feature on Woman’s Hour on Radio 4 with Melissa Cole and Charlotte Cook focusing on issues of sexism, harassment, homophobia and transphobia in craft beer.

Craft is of course modern, cutting edge stuff full of people who the Daily Telegraph would describe as ‘woke’. Yet there are still employers and employment relations and wherever they exist there is ample scope for bad practice and worse.

The answer as Matthew Curtis, the Burum Collective and others have posted is a trade union. Or to be more accurate it’s the start of an answer.

My occasional posts on the matter usually attract little obvious attention. Beer (aside from Big Beer) is largely not organised by unions and someone working in the sector reposting such a piece might find themselves victimised or blacklisted by their employer. Both are illegal but taking effective action in that context is hard work. Ask those who have been blacklisted over the years in the building trades about that.

Maybe the impact of COVID-19, furlough and potential and actual job cuts has opened a moment when the trade union movement can organise craft beer. It’s not union officials in Head Offices that’ll do that though, its workers on the ground pushing for it.

Brewdog lost an Employment Tribunal case in 2018 against a former employee who took a case around the issue that the brewer had failed to make adequate adjustments in a situation where the individual had failing eyesight. I haven’t read the Tribunal judgement but would merely note that it is not particularly easy to win ET cases.

The Bakers Union (BFAWU) balloted for and took strike action at two Wetherspoons pubs in Brighton over a demand for a £10 living wage and union recognition. The Bakers have been pioneering in efforts to unionise companies like McDonalds.

Of course Big Beer is largely unionised, mainly by Unite and Unite also has membership in some craft brewers as does the independent union IWW.

Craft Beer is much smaller and mostly union free though, even if more progressive employers do pay the living wage. On the whole in recent times while union organisation in large scale private sector employers is robust (I’m a union officer in this environment) in smaller private sector areas unionisation is poor.

In short if people have an issue they quit and go somewhere else. Not always ideal for either employee or employer.

Of course there is nothing to stop anyone working for a craft beer brewer from joining a union. They will get personal representation and advice and much cheaper and much better informed advice too than consulting a lawyer.

Collective recognition is a different matter. Unions like anyone else have to look at resource and cost as well as the important principle of trade union organisation and recognition. Recruitment and recognition campaigns are hard fought and hard won.

When it comes to sexism, harassment and so on in the workplace, union organisation and recognition does help a lot. Cases can safely be called out (it still takes a lot of courage though) and there is an established framework for dealing with them. Far from all work out well but the large employers where I operate do identify transgressors, particularly serial transgressors and sack them.

That’s just the beginning of a lengthy story though. What about equal pay, the gender pay gap, the gender pension pay gap? Also what about detrimental impact of maternity on promotion opportunities(it shouldn’t exist, it does) and by the way are the Executives still a load of white men in suits. Unions actively grapple with all these issues.

Some craft brewers are probably large enough to warrant collective representation now. Brewdog, Beavertown and Camden come to mind. That doesn’t mean ‘everybody out’ by the way. It mainly means a better organised way of reflecting and dealing with workplace and workforce issues.

The same applies to bars which is why the BFAWU initiative at Spoons is interesting.

So when it comes to unions in craft beer and pubs, perhaps the question is, if not now, when?

Update

There is an interesting post from Boak & Bailey @boakandbailey. It focuses on what beer drinkers and pub goers can do. Boycott is the obvious point though if that is to be effective it needs to be collectivised and focused on particular issues. Personally I make a point of talking about unions and the importance of joining without minimising the issues & problems which obviously as a union officer I am very familiar with. The bottom line though is to get the confidence to challenge and do something. That can be a very hard thing to do, but it can be done

trade unions active in this area include @IWWLondon @BFAWUOfficial @FairHospitality