Canadian brewery drops a retiree perk: free beer for life

FOR decades, a job at the Labatt, one of Canada’s two major breweries, came with an unusual perk: free beer for life. But now, the company’s retirees have been cut off.

In a memo to employees, the brewer, which is owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, said it would gradually turn off the retirees’ beer tap over the next two years.

“It’s been around, I think, since the breweries have been around,” David Bridger, the president of the Service Employees International Union local that represents workers at Labatt’s brewery in London, Ontario, said this week. He predicted that the loss of the bottomless keg would further undermine morale.

The controlling shareholders of Anheuser-Busch InBev are 3G Capital, a Brazilian private equity firm, and some of its executives.

As with all of its holdings, 3G began extensive cost cutting at Labatt, which it acquired in 1995, including lower wages and reduced benefits. The end of beer for life, announced in late October, appears to be its most recent measure.

Routine free beer for retirees was ended at Molson Coors, Canada’s other large brewery, several years ago. But Gavin Thompson, a spokesman for the company, said it still pro- vided beer to pensioners “who are hosting a special event, like a family reunion”.

How much free beer Labatt retirees can lug home each year depends on where they live, although it easily exceeds the 99 bottles of musical fame. At the plant in London, which slakes all of Ontario’s thirst for Labatt’s Blue and Budweiser, Bridger said retirees were getting about eight 24-bottle cases – what Canadians sometimes call a “two-four” – a year. Current employees get a free case every other week and bonus cases at Christmas, apparently in lieu of a turkey, and for Canada Day. Their free beer will continue as long as they are employees.

Retirees in Edmonton, Alberta, get a free case every week. In most of the country, Bridger said, the retirees are given gift cards which allow them to pick up their free beer at retail stores.

Why free beer became an entrenched perk of brewery work is unclear. Labatt said its labour agreements did not require it to keep retirees’ refrigera- tors filled. B r i d g e r said the L a b a t t b r e w e r y in London once included an i n - h o u s e pub where employees drank for free – after their shifts ended.

T a m a r Nersesian, a Labatt spokeswoman, said the program for retirees now being wound down was introduced during the 1970s.

In its letter announcing the cutoff, Labatt cited the “rising overall cost” of retiree benefits, including health care.

“That’s a bit rich,” aid Larry Innanen, a retiree from Oakville, Ontario, who was involved in a class-action lawsuit after Labatt cut health benefits. Innanen, who was an executive vice president and general counsel at Labatt, said the settlement of that lawsuit reduced the company’s costs while lowering health benefits to former employees.

Innanen said the end of free beer for life was not a surprise. But he is still disappointed.

“It’s a loss to a class of former employees,” Innanen said. “It means something, it’s material to them.”