Campaign launch: Workers at Anchor Brewing in San Francisco launched their union effort with supporters who visited customers and small businesses on February 7. Anchor is hammering workers with an anti-union campaign before the March 6th union election. Photo by Otto Pippenger
Workers who make one of the nation’s best-known craft beers – Anchor Steam – are organizing to join the ILWU. Their grassroots, home-grown campaign is filled with energy and attracting national headlines because craft brews are hot, profitable and popular with young people. If the Anchor workers vote for the union on March 6th, they’ll join the ILWU and be some of the first craft brewery workers to organize.
Unlike most craft brewers, Anchor has deep roots. They were founded in San Francisco more than a century ago in 1896. But they’ve also been swept along with many new craft brews that have been bought by big corporate players. Anchor was purchased in 2017 by Japan’s Sapporo for $85 million.
In recent years, wages, benefits and working conditions at Anchor went from relatively generous to skimpy. Employee Garrett Kelly says he joined the company three years ago, starting at $15.50, with 180 hours of paid sick leave and 45 minute paid lunches. Retirement was a 401(k), not a pension, but the company matched 3% of what he contributed. Now the match has been taken away, lunch is down to 30 minutes and half their sick-time has disappeared. Looking back, some employees remember five years ago when the starting pay was over $17 an hour.
“It’s a tale as old as time — it’s just a concentration of wealth at the top with a complete disregard for workers,” Kelly told a reporter. Another thing mentioned by many workers is the increased time they spend commuting to work because low wages and the lack of affordable housing is pushing them and other families out of the city.
When a majority of the sixty or so brewery workers decided it was time to do something, they reached out to the ILWU after considering other unions. Before that step, they contacted the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) San Francisco Chapter, which is full of young activists including some craft beer workers. They’re savvy about public media, public relations and know how to organize actions that are fun and effective. Their organizing campaign was launched in the Mission District’s nightclub area, where dozens of workers and volunteers visited local bars to chat-up patrons, bartenders, owners and snag selfies that were posted with the hashtags #anchorunion and #anchoredinsf. Sapporo management first responded by promising to remain “neutral,” but has now hired union-busting consultants and is forcing workers to attend anti-union lectures. Some workers have been told to remove their union buttons but most brewery workers are proudly wearing theirs.
“We’re prepared for the company’s anti-union campaign,” said union supporters Ryan Enright and Bruce Belden. “We’re keeping everyone informed about the usual lies and distortions from union busters.”
Anchor workers are also embracing the spirit of solidarity by reaching out to support other worker organizing campaigns, including employees at the nearby San Francisco Veterinary Specialists animal hospital. They also held actions during San Francisco’s official “Beer Week.” The Dispatcher will feature an update about their campaign and election in the March issue.