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Noutăţi CASTLE MALTING în parteneriat cu www.e-malt.com Romanian
31 May, 2006



Brewing news USA: Union talks rejected City Brewing Co. bid for the Raines Road facility

A Wisconsin-based company's plan to buy the local Molson Coors Brewing Co. brewery has fizzled after negotiations with the local union came to a halt, The Commercial Appeal posted May 31.

The move comes less than a month after La Crosse, Wisconsin-based City Brewing Co. announced plans to buy the Raines Road facility, which is scheduled to close later this year.

City Brewing officials expressed interest in the brewery, which employs 350 people, but said "certain conditions" would have to be met before the plant was bought. "One of the first ones was getting an agreement from the labour union," said City Brewing president Randy Smith. "We put together what we thought was a fair contract and gave them the same terms we have with our union here (in La Crosse), which is also a Teamsters union. The general membership of the union fairly overwhelmingly rejected it so we didn't even get to first base because of that.

"Maybe there would have been other issues down the road, but that was a primary one and you can't get to second base if you never reach first."

While offering few specifics, union officials said City Brewing wanted deep concessions from employees.

"They were severe cuts in wages and benefits," said Wesley Fiveash, secretary treasurer of Teamsters Local 1196, which represents 245 union employees at the plant.

City Brewing produces about 1.6 million barrels a day, up from zero five years ago when the company was started.

According to Brewers Association, City Brewing was the fifth largest craft brewer in the United States in 2005, after Anheuser-Busch, Miller Brewing, Coors Brewing and Pabst Brewing. Craft brewers produce primarily all-malt beer.

The company got its start when the G. Heileman brewery (known for Old Style beer) in La Crosse closed in 1999. Some of the plant's workers along with other local investors bought the facility and opened City Brewing, named after the original brewery that opened on that spot in 1858.

Meanwhile, Molson Coors is moving forward with plans to close the Southeast Memphis plant earlier than expected.

Just days after last year's merger of Colorado-based Adolph Coors Co. and Canada's Molson Inc., the company announced that the 1.3 million- square-foot plant would be closed in early 2007. Now, the brewery is expected to stop production in September.

"It's a blow for all those employees, and it's a blow for the greater Memphis economy," Fiveash said.

Molson Coors -- which reported a net loss of $30.2 million, or 35 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $34.2 million, or 54 cents per share in the first quarter last year -- has been searching for a buyer for the brewery, which produces about 5 million barrels a year, since announcing plans to close it.

"We're still trying to sell the facility but the deal with City Brewery wasn't going to work," said Robin Hicks, who has worked at the plant for 15 years and is now manager of business development and corporate affairs. "Hopefully, it will sell because it has been such a wonderful place to work."

The Memphis plant brewed Coors Light for export, plus Zima XXX, Keystone Light and Blue Moon.

Production of those products has begun to shift to other plants -- in Colorado, Virginia and Canada -- as the company phases out the Memphis plant.

The brewery started out as a Schlitz brewery in 1971 and was sold to Stroh Brewery Co. before becoming part of Adolph Coors Co. in 1990.

Coors said the closure of the Memphis plant is part of a larger savings plan that was expected to save the company $35 million a year beginning in 2007.





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