London Fields Brewery shut by Carlsberg: the importance of union organisation
London Fields Brewery in Hackney was shut with immediate effect on Tuesday.
An unknown number of people will either lose their jobs or ideally Carlsberg should find them suitable alternative employment (it does after all have a very large UK operation). Suitable alternative employment is a term in redundancy law and Carlsberg are legally required to open a period of collective and individual consultation with those effected. At that consultation counter proposals can be made to suggest different ways of doing things to save jobs.
All that of course implies that a union was recognised at LFB, which as far as I know it wasn’t. In practice workers will get statutory redundancy terms based on length of service which won’t amount to very much.
If a union had been recognised a sudden announcement of closure before Xmas might well have been avoided.
Carlsberg ran LFB in a joint venture with Brooklyn but its clear from the post announcement media statement that Carlsberg are the owners. They claim the LFB core range beers had seen significant falls in sales and hence, one presumes, were making a loss.
Carlsberg become the second global brewer to draw back from craft beer in recent weeks after Molson Coors sold the Hopstuff plant and bars to Salt. Molson Coors have retained the brand name but Carlsberg have stated that are looking for a buyer for the LFB brewery who will continue the brand. In the meantime the beers are being brewed at Camerons underlining that Carlsberg want to sell it as a going concern. One wonders if there will be any takers..
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