Fair State, Schell’s brew together to celebrate solidarity

March 5, 2021 by

Fair State Brewing’s Union Lager is moving quickly in the taproom and in liquor stores – and in this reporter’s refrigerator, too.

Minnesota’s oldest and newest union breweries have teamed up to craft a beer celebrating solidarity in the workplace.

Union Lager is a collaborative brew by Fair State in the Twin Cities, where workers formed a union with UNITE HERE Local 17 last summer, and August Schell in New Ulm, where union members have been brewing beer since the 1930s. They currently are represented by the Steelworkers union.

The beer is crisp and moderately hoppy – a “crusher,” Fair State says on its website. Local 17 member Ian Sutherland, who uses plural pronouns, said the Union Lager is moving steadily in Fair State’s northeast Minneapolis taproom, where they work behind the bar.

“It’s beautiful,” Sutherland added. “It’s a good blend of hoppy and malty. It has a little of the hard-water profile, a little minerally. It’s a very good sessionable lager.”

Crafting lagers is a passion shared by the brewers and friends behind the collaboration, Fair State’s Niko Tonks and Schell’s Jace Marti.

When he saw the news Fair State workers had unionized last September, Marti quickly fired off a text message to Tonks. “I said congratulations on being unionized,” Marti said. “Let’s do a collaboration.”

It’s not often management celebrates its workers’ decision to form a union, let alone markets a new product around the news. But Fair State’s historic union drive was unique from the start.

Organizing was already afoot when Sutherland began bartending in June of last year. Within three months, enough workers at the taproom and Fair State’s St. Paul brewery were on board to petition management for voluntary recognition of their union, which they did the morning after Labor Day.

“Our brewer is kind of a neighborhood brewery now, but it’s starting to do some national distribution,” Sutherland said. “Our thinking was maybe it was time to cement some power in a union as we start to make the trek toward a larger-scale brewery.”

Fair State’s chief executive, Evan Sallee, immediately embraced the idea, Sutherland said. A day later, after consulting with the board of member-owners, Sallee celebrated Fair State becoming the nation’s first unionized microbrewery in an open letter on the cooperative’s website.

Sutherland said workers have been pleasantly surprised to see their union “become so integral” to Fair State’s identity. “It’s a cool thing that cements our place in the workplace,” they said.

Even better, Fair State has backed up its branding both at the table and on the shop floor.

Progress toward a first contract covering the union’s 20-plus members has been steady. Sutherland credited Local 17 Secretary-Treasurer Sheigh Freeberg with “playing the role of advocate for us and educator for both sides” as Fair State workers and managers familiarize themselves with the process.

The question everyone is trying to answer in bargaining, Sutherland said, is how to balance “the nimbleness required of a craft brewery” with a union contract.

“That’s the challenge, but it’s definitely headed in a direction that feels really healthy,” Sutherland added. “People are realizing if you want something to change, we have real power to try to make that happen.”

Whether the Union Lager will be available for a toast to Fair State workers’ first contract, whenever it’s settled, remains to be seen.

The two breweries developed their own batches and labels for the beer. Fair State’s product hit shelves first, and Tonks, Fair State’s founding brewer, said liquor stores snatched up their local distributor’s allotment in about a week.

“That’s fast,” Tonks laughed. “Response has been strong, and it’s pretty much gone.”

Fortunately for anyone who missed out, Schell’s batch should be ready for sale sometime this month. And Tonks said both brewers are looking for an excuse – contract ratification, perhaps? – to brew it again.

Marti said he isn’t surprised by the Union Lager’s success. The collaboration seemed to him charmed from Day 1, when he and Tonks decided to take their inspiration from the Westphalian Pale Lager, a German beer made famous by the now-defunct Dortmunder Union Brewery.

“It was known as a hard-working beer, a blue-collar drinking beer,” Marti said. “It all fit perfectly.”

*****

Want to talk about organizing your workplace with someone who’s done it recently? Sutherland and other Fair State unionists welcome the opportunity! Get ahold of them at fairstateunion [at] gmail [dot] com.

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Teamsters end beer strike, credit ‘labor solidarity’ for keeping them strong

May 25, 2018 by
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J.J. Taylor drivers Adrian Wiegert (L) and Mark Hennum picket outside the facility with other members of Teamsters Local 792.

Beer truck drivers and helpers at J.J. Taylor Distributing in Minneapolis voted overwhelmingly to ratify a new contract last night, ending their seven-week strike.

Not one member of Teamsters Local 792 crossed the picket line during the strike, and all 93 striking workers will return to their jobs, as the company was unable to hire permanent replacements.

“I can honestly say I’ve never been a part of a group that looks out for each other like we did,” Darin Bakken, a helper with five years of experience at J.J. Taylor, said. “This is a very strong group.”

Larry Yoswa, Local 792’s secretary-treasurer, attributed the unity to broad community support. Several bars, restaurants and liquor stores refused to accept deliveries from J.J. Taylor during the strike, and a list of beers distributed by the company went viral on the internet with the hashtag #ratscabbeer, prompting many consumers to buy different brands.

This week, workers began passing out the fliers to fans on their way into St. Paul Saints games.

“One of the beer vendors … stopped at the picket line,” Bakken said. “He said what we did outside was huge. There were a lot of people who took a peek at that list before he could pour a beer.”

But the biggest source of strength, Yoswa said, was labor solidarity.

“Labor in this state was what really helped us stay out so long,” he said. “The locals of Teamsters Joint Council 32 stepped up big time. We had the nurses out here, the postal workers, all of the trades — everybody saw the news and got out here.

“That’s what kept them solid for seven weeks, knowing they had that kind of support.”

Yoswa characterized the new contract as a “bittersweet victory” for workers, who took a stand for safety on the job. The two sides were able to reach a compromise on union members’ top priority, keeping two workers on keg-heavy routes.

Bakken, who has worked for 20 years in the beer industry, said the trend toward increasing workloads is a dangerous one. “You can’t have one guy all alone handling all the kegs day after day, year after year,” he said. “You’re going to get hurt, and your career is done.”

Now, workers are looking forward to seeing the people on their delivery route again – especially the ones who stood with Teamsters in the fight. McDonald’s Liquor and Wine in Minneapolis, one of the stops on Bakken’s route, had an empty cooler where the Miller Lite display usually goes.

“That’s pretty damn cool that they’re standing up for us,” he said.

[CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL LIST OF BARS AND LIQUOR STORES THAT SUPPORTED TEAMSTERS IN THEIR STRIKE FOR SAFE JOBS.]

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Delegates debated beer’s ‘intoxicating effects’ 75 years ago

February 3, 2014 by

This headline from The Union Advocate’s Feb. 16, 1939 edition immediately caught our eye: “Assembly Opposed To Defining Beer As Intoxicating.”

Turns out, the headline was a bit misleading. The article reported that St. Paul’s central labor body, the Trades and Labor Assembly, passed a resolution opposing a bill before the Minnesota Legislature to define so-called “three-two beer” – beverages with 3.2 percent alcohol content or less – as intoxicating.

Unions joined the brewing industry in opposing the measure, which would have placed limits on the sale of beer “for the benefit of the hard liquor interests.” Whiskey distilleries, The Advocate reported, were not nearly as unionized as breweries, which were “practically 100 percent union throughout the nation” at the time.

“Proponents of the motion declared that such a law would drive hundreds of places out of business by reason of high license fees with consequent curtailment of employment in the brewing industry,” The Advocate reported.

We’ll drink to that.

[The Union Advocate’s “This Month in the Archives” feature offers a look back at what the newspaper was reporting from 5 to 100 years ago. Our digital archives are online, searchable and free to anyone. Click here for access.]

75 Years Ago: Café owner accused paper of libel

The Advocate’s coverage of wage theft at a St. Paul eatery drew charges of libel from the establishment’s owner in February 1939.

Workers at Gentile’s Café, a union shop on Payne Avenue, signed sworn affidavits in support of The Advocate’s reporting, the newspaper reported in its Feb. 9 edition.

The affidavits confirmed owner Charles Gentile had forced employees to endorse the backs of their paychecks without seeing the amount on the front. Gentile would then cash the checks himself and return a different amount to the employees, “holding out whatever he thought the employee would approve through fear of losing his or her job.”

The claims of libel were strange, given that Gentile had already reached a settlement with the Hotel and Restaurant Employees union, which called for the café to pay $350 in back wages to its workers.

Just because Gentile had made things right with his workers, The Advocate argued, did not change the facts of the story.

“In publishing the story … the Union Advocate followed its usual course in giving publicity to an affair of vital importance to organized Labor,” The Advocate reported. “Such publications are made for the sole purpose of serving as a deterrent to others against chiseling on union agreements.”

Charles Gray, director of the Asian-American Free Labor Institute, AFL-CIO, gave a presentation at the University of Minnesota.

Charles Gray, director of the Asian-American Free Labor Institute, AFL-CIO, gave a presentation at the University of Minnesota.

25 Years Ago: Spotlight on child labor

The Union Advocate put a spotlight on child labor in its Feb. 20, 1989 edition, reporting on a speech delivered by Charles Gray, director of the Asian-American Free Labor Institute, AFL-CIO, at the University of Minnesota.

“Kermit the Frog, Mickey Mouse and the California Raisins can bring smiles to the faces of American youngsters. But in developing countries, these toys represent misery for the young girls and boys who spend long hours toiling to produce them,” Union Advocate Editor Barb Kucera wrote.

Gray’s speech detailed long hours, low wages and sweatshop conditions endured by children working in Asia’s developing countries, particularly China, Hong Kong and Thailand.

“An average work week for a 12-year-old girl in such a factory runs from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. The girl receives a one-hour lunch break and often sleeps right on the factory premises in makeshift dormitories housing dozens, sometimes hundreds, of children.

“During the Christmas rush to get toy orders to the United States, the young workers have been ordered to put in 24-hour shifts,” Gray said.

International political pressure, he added, would be crucial to eliminating child labor, as it can help bring about the economic change that he called “the only real solution to the problem.”

“The real solution to child labor is prosperity,” Gray said. “The key is for Mom and Dad to have a job.”

100 Years Ago: Contractors pushed for ‘open shop’

St. Paul Carpenters Union Local 87 ramped up its efforts to strike an agreement for labor peace with the city’s Master Builders association in February 1914, and The Advocate’s Feb. 27 edition documented an exchange of letters between the two sides on its front page.

Representatives of the contractors’ group, however, declined the union’s offer to meet and negotiate a new agreement, prompting charges from the union they were pushing for an “open-shop” system.

Local 87 leaders warned the contractors – and the public – that such a push would be met with stiff resistance. “It is manifest that the Carpenters’ union is opposed to any disturbance in building trades activities in St. Paul this year, and if any upheaval or unpleasantness should come the Master Builders’ association will be wholly responsible for it.”

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