January 21–28, 1999
hit and run
Message In A Bottle
If you've driven on I-95 south of the city recently, you may have noticed a new billboard: "Demand American Beer in American Bottles! Call Anheuser-Busch at 800-342-5283."
It's the latest installment in the Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics & Allied Workers International Union's (GMP) campaign against one of the largest brewers in the United States, Anheuser-Busch, makers of Budweiser beer.
The GMP, based in Media, PA, alleges that Anheuser-Busch's latest cost-cutting measure—purchasing 5 percent of its bottles from a Mexican glass manufacturer—is taking jobs away from Americans.
According to the GMP, which represents 65,000 American workers, in March 1998, Anheuser-Busch signed a $200 million agreement with Anchor Glass Container Corporation to buy bottles for its West Coast distribution. Anchor then contracted out the order to Fevisa, a manufacturer located in Mexicali, Mexico, near Los Angeles.
"Budweiser is great American beer. We prefer that it be an entirely American product," says GMP spokesman Richard Kline.
"They troop their Clydesdales through the advertisements and pretend this is the same company that Mr. Busch founded in 1876. That's not the case."
The conditions at the Mexican plant are "squalid," says Kline. The starting wage at the plant is $7.40 a day, he adds; American union workers make at least $15 an hour.
Before the agreement was signed, Anheuser-Busch purchased bottles from Anchor, Ball-Foster and Owens-Brockway for its West Coast distribution. The company maintains that they signed the agreement because of a few factors: The demand for beer in bottles has increased and shipping bottles from all over the country to the West Coast has "significantly increased the company's costs and put us at a competitive disadvantage in an extremely competitive industry."
Though the Mexican plant will only produce 5 percent of Anheuser-Busch's bottles, the GMP fears the company is setting a trend for the future.
"It's the first time a major brewer has looked at foreign glass," says Kline.
In response to the billboard, Anheuser-Busch released a formal statement on Jan. 19, calling the GMP's actions "short-sighted" and "a misguided attack campaign." The company charges that the GMP wants Anheuser-Busch "to lose our competitive position and boost prices to beer drinkers, which ultimately hurts our employees and customers."
According to the statement, Anheuser-Busch asked its American glass suppliers to come up with a "cost-effective" solution to the rising costs of glass shipping. Anchor was the only company that responded.
However, says Kline, the cost-effective measures Anheuser-Busch was asking the American companies to come up with were unacceptable.
In addition to the I-95 billboard, the GMP is negotiating to rent a billboard on the Schuylkill. The union has also erected similar signs in Flint, MI, and Pasadena, CA; has flown planes over the Rose Bowl, over Busch Stadium during Mark McGwire's home-run spree; and plans to fly a plane over the Super Bowl.
