Friday, 8 January 2010

ABInbev Workers Take Bosses Hostage

There are reports that ABInbev workers in Belgium have taken their bosses hostage in Leuven, demanding that they retract plans for over 200 redundancies at the site.

13 comments:

rabidbarfly said...

I'm now scared to go to work..

Melissa Cole said...

What you need to remember though Glynn is that you don't run the show, we all know that!!!!!!!!!!!!!! : )

Cooking Lager said...

Wifebeater is now bossbeater?

Melissa Cole said...

ha ha ha!

Ed said...

Excellent. :-)

Sid Boggle said...

@Cookie: They must have tweaked the recipe to make it more wife-friendly, but they haven't isolated the bit that causes the aggression. Still, karmic, in a way... 8-)

Rob Sterowski said...

My French isn't good enough for this: http://www.rtbf.be/info/economie/emploi/inbev-les-sites-de-louvain-et-jupille-bloques-par-les-travailleurs-175894

Is production interrupted due to the weather or because of a walkout?

Melissa Cole said...

@Barm - I'm pretty sure it's saying a picket by the workers - Laurent would be the best man for this, my French is so rusty it's terrifying!

Laurent Mousson said...

Here I am, indeed, it says the Jupille plant is completely blocked, and the Louvain/Leuven partly stopped following industrial action. Apparently the blockade ensures no raw materials enter the sites and no beer leaves them.

Bottling and kegging lines at Louvain are reportedly stopped since 8 AM today, but production continues, as the plant can run for 36 hours on existing reserves.

AB InBev announced they planned to axe 263 jobs, about 10% of the workforce, which understandable caused a bit of an uproar among employees. The board appear to have been locked in until 2 PM today at Jupille.

Unions will meet on Monday and then meet the board again on Tuesday.

Laurent Mousson said...

And further news about InBev, regarding Luxemburg :
http://www.republicain-lorrain.fr/fr/article/2556408,75/Le-Luxembourg-perd-une-biere-emblematique.html

InBev is considering closing the Diekirch plant, where Luxemburger beer brands Diekirch and Mousel are produced. Production would be moved to Louvain and/or Jupille. 63 jobs on the line here.

Rob said...

I love this kind of news. The suffering of the big guys, the brewers of (as i call) 'the dark side'. Bring them down I say!

Melissa Cole said...

Thanks for the translation Laurent, now looks like there will be redundancies in the UK as well, there was a very bizarre comment on the Publican website about the potential UK job losses as well!

http://www.thepublican.com/story.asp?sectioncode=7&storycode=66112&c=1

Laurent Mousson said...

Well, ltest I've heard is that production has now completely stopped at Louvain too, that major retailers can still go on fot three to ten days with existing stocks (that was yesterday) before consumers have to turn to non-InBev beer (shock horror !), that negotiations were very much at a standstill, and - today - that a Belgian court had deemed the blockade of the plants illegal, but that InBev did not wish to have it enforced by police yet.