The 1953 Milwaukee brewery strike was a
labor strike
Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the ...
that involved approximately 7,100 workers at six
breweries
A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of beer ...
in
Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee i ...
,
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
. The strike began on May 14 of that year after the
Brewery Workers
A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of beer ...
Local 9 and an
employers' organization
An employers' organization or employers' association is a collective organization of manufacturers, retailers, or other employers of wage labor. Employers' organizations seek to coordinate the behavior of their member companies in matters of mutual ...
representing six Milwaukee-based brewing companies failed to agree to new labor contracts. These contracts would have increased the workers' wages and decreased their working hours, making them more comparable to the labor contracts of brewery workers elsewhere in the country. The strike ended in late July, after the
Valentin Blatz Brewing Company
The Valentin Blatz Brewing Company was an American brewery based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It produced Blatz Beer from 1851 until 1959, when the label was sold to Pabst Brewing Company.
Blatz beer is currently produced by the Miller Brewing Com ...
(one of the smaller companies in the organization) broke with the other breweries and began negotiating with the union. The other companies soon followed suit and the strike officially ended on July 29, with union members voting to accept new contracts that addressed many of their initial concerns.
Background
![Val](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Val._Blatz%27s_Milwaukee_Lager_Beer_1879.jpg)
The city of
Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee i ...
has a long history pertaining to the
brewing industry
Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from cerea ...
and has been the home for numerous major
breweries
A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of beer ...
. In the early 1950s, the Milwaukee-based
Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company
The Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company was an American brewery based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and once the largest producer of beer in the United States. Its namesake beer, Schlitz (), was known as "The beer that made Milwaukee famous" and was adve ...
was the largest brewer in the world and in 1952 it set a world record by churning out 6.35 million
barrels
A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids, u ...
of beer in one year. Several years prior, in 1946, the
Brewery Workers
A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of beer ...
(the national
labor union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (s ...
representing brewery workers) became affiliated with the
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in 1935 as a committee within the American Federation of ...
(CIO). The
Local union
A local union (often shortened to local), in North America, or union branch (known as a lodge in some unions), in the United Kingdom and other countries, is a local branch (or chapter) of a usually national trade union. The terms used for sub-bran ...
representing workers in Milwaukee, Local 9, traced its history back to the late 1800s and was one of the most powerful unions in
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
. On May 1, 1953, the
labor contract between Local 9 members and Milwaukee brewers (represented by a joint bargaining committee) was set to expire. Subsequently, Local 9 representatives submitted a new proposed contract, with items in the proposal included a $0.25 per hour wage increase, a reduction in working hours from 40 to 35 per week, additional holidays, and improvements to
pension
A pension (, from Latin ''pensiĆ'', "payment") is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments ...
and
health plans. These provisions were designed to put Milwaukee brewery workers on equal pay and hours as workers on the
West Coast and
East Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, the Atlantic Coast, and the Atlantic Seaboard, is the coastline along which the Eastern United States meets the North Atlantic Ocean. The eastern seaboard contains the coa ...
. Additionally, the union wanted to raise the weekly salary for workers in the bottling and brewing departments from $80 and $82, respectively, to $90.75. At the time, the base hourly pay for Milwaukee brewery workers was $2. John Schmitt, the local's
recording secretary
A record, recording or records may refer to:
An item or collection of data Computing
* Record (computer science), a data structure
** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity
** Boot sector or boot record, r ...
, stated that the reduced number of hours was due to increased productivity from advancements in machinery, with a ''
Chicago Daily Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television are ...
'' article at the time reporting him as saying "there are not 12 months of work for our people any more." Finally, on May 14, 1953, after months of discussions that resulted in no agreement between the union and companies, approximately 7,100 members of Local 9 from 6 breweries performed a
walkout, beginning a labor strike against the breweries. According to a later report by the ''
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The ''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel'' is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where it is the primary newspaper. It is also the largest newspaper in the state of Wisconsin, where it is widely distributed. It is currently ...
'', the union members had "voted overwhelmingly" to strike.
The strike affected six brewing companies in Milwaukee: Schlitz,
A. Gettelman Brewing Company,
Independent Milwaukee Brewery,
Miller Brewing Company
The Miller Brewing Company is an American brewery and beer company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was founded in 1855 by Frederick Miller. Molson Coors acquired the full global brand portfolio of Miller Brewing Company in 2016, and operates the ...
,
Pabst Brewing Company
The Pabst Brewing Company () is an American company that dates its origins to a brewing company founded in 1844 by Jacob Best and was, by 1889, named after Frederick Pabst. It is currently a holding company which contracts the brewing of over ...
, and the
Valentin Blatz Brewing Company
The Valentin Blatz Brewing Company was an American brewery based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It produced Blatz Beer from 1851 until 1959, when the label was sold to Pabst Brewing Company.
Blatz beer is currently produced by the Miller Brewing Com ...
.
Course of the strike
While the strike shut down brewing throughout the city, many
bars and other drinking establishments in Milwaukee had a stockpile of beer, avoiding a potential shortage early on. On June 1, despite making no concessions to Milwaukee employees regarding working hours, Schlitz offered workers at a brewery in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
a reduction in weekly hours from 37.5 to 35 and a pay increase of $0.66 per hour more than the base pay rate in Milwaukee. This action increased
solidarity
''Solidarity'' is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. It is based on class collaboration.''Merriam Webster'', http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictio ...
among the Milwaukee strikers. As the strike continued into June, drinking establishments in Milwaukee began importing beer from different breweries brewed in places outside of Milwaukee, such as
Peru, Indiana
Peru is a city in, and the county seat of, Miami County, Indiana, Miami County, Indiana, United States. It is north of Indianapolis. The population was 11,417 at the 2010 census, making it the most populous city in Miami County. Peru is located ...
. On June 26, Local 9 members voted 6,274 to 348 to reject a $0.15 hourly wage increase that had been offered by the breweries. At the time, the brewing companies were beginning to hurt financially due to the strike. While Pabst and Schlitz had breweries in other locations, the other companies only operated breweries in Milwaukee, causing them to be more greatly affected by the strike.
In late July, Blatz, whose only breweries were in Milwaukee, broke with the other brewing companies and began to negotiate directly with Local 9 regarding a contract. Following this, the other companies followed suit and began to negotiate. With Blatz having already secured an agreement with the union, the other companies were forced to accept the terms of the Blatz agreement, which included an hourly wage increase, two additional holidays, improvements to the life insurance and pension plans, and a 30 minute paid lunch, among other things. In total, the strike lasted 76 days, ending on July 29. On that day, union members voted approximately 3 to 1 to accept new labor contracts with the 6 brewing companies.
Aftermath
Following the strike, Blatz was removed from the association representing the Milwaukee brewers for their "unethical" actions during the strike. At the 1953 Schlitz company
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...
party, Schlitz president Erwin C. Uihlein said the following regarding the strike:
The strike contributed to Schlitz's rival
Anheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch Companies, LLC is an American brewing company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Since 2008, it has been wholly owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (AB InBev), now the world's largest brewing company, which owns multiple glo ...
(based in
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
) overtaking them in 1953 as the country's largest brewing company. Both Anheuser-Busch and Schlitz competed for the top spot throughout the 1950s, and Schlitz had held it in the two years prior to the strike. However, in the years following the strike, Schlitz would rebound and continue to grow, acquiring numerous smaller brewing companies during the 1960s. They again held the top spot between 1955 and 1956.
See also
*
1981 Schlitz strike
Notes
References
Bibliography
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{{refend
1953 in Wisconsin
1953 labor disputes and strikes
Alcohol in the United States
Beer in Wisconsin
Brewery workers
Congress of Industrial Organizations
History of Milwaukee
Labor disputes in Wisconsin
Molson Coors Beverage Company
Pabst Brewing Company