12.11.10

An American Christmas Story

Posted in Stumble and Fail at 10:02 am by George Smith

I was at a late afternoon Christmas party in Pasadena yesterday when I was told a classically 2010 American tale.

The fellow to the left of me was talking about his job. He worked at the big Miller brewery in southern California, west on the superhighway out of Pasadena to Irwindale. It’s a classic joint. Like all breweries, you can smell the fermentation when you drive by.

He informed the room that Miller’s development plan was to downsize/fire 50 percent of the employees at the place.

I was astonished. Beer, like pizza, one would think to be virtually recession proof. Only if you kill off a population do you cut overall consumption of alcohol.

And the biology and thermodynamics of fermentation has not been changed by innovation in hundreds of years. It can’t be done. Beer-making is immutable. You cannot make it more efficient through the application of technology aimed at efficiency and downsizing.

So I asked the man what was the reasoning behind this, since beer-making can’t be revolutionized.

He said that management had figured out that if you had two people who did jobs with overlap, you could fire one of them, award half their salary to the retained worker, and make the person still employed do twice the work. And the leftovers would jump at that.

He added that this made more profit for the shareholders and company heads.

I had nothing more to say. I wanted to ask, “But didn’t that destroy the morale of everyone at the brewery?”

However, it seemed best to remain silent. It was a Christmas party, after all.

“SABMiller plc (SAB.L) and Molson Coors Brewing Company (NYSE: TAP; TSX) today reported MillerCoors underlying earnings grew at a double digit rate driven by strong cost management and net pricing, which were offset by soft volumes due to a sluggish U.S. beer market in the third quarter ended September 30, 2010,” reads a press release from November here.

“MillerCoors third quarter underlying net income, excluding special items increased 36.7 percent to $334 million versus the prior year comparable quarter last year.”

Miller, like every beer, sells itself as true blue collar. It’s typified by the slew of ads featuring the chunky delivery truck man, often affronted or being made queasy by things encountered on his route. Like finding himself being sent to a hockey barn being used by the bluebloods for a dog beauty show.

When you see this from now on it’ll be the guys in the Miller work uniforms making you ‘queasy.’

The story that Miller’s plan was to fire half of its blue collar employees in Irwindale for the sake of the shareholders really puts a dent in the way I see the advertising. And the product.

It shows the company doesn’t give even the slightest shit about the people who its product is sold to. Miller beer might as well be plastic drawstring garbage bags.

Before yesterday I used to think that beer-making was a job one might take pride in. How stupid.

Happy Christmas and God bless us, every one!

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