The Whiskey Reviewer A World of Whiskey, Poured Every Weekday
By Richard Thomas
Following a vote reported in The Kentucky Standard, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 111D employed at Jim Beam voted 201-19 in favor of a strike over a contract dispute and other difficulties, effective this past Friday. Striking workers were seen picketing outside the distillery in Clermont, Kentucky.
Reportedly the union members voted for the strike even after it was endorsed by the union’s representatives. The strike continues today.
The contract offered by Beam was a two-year deal offering a wage hike, the elimination of the existing two-tiered wage structure for most employees, and other benefits.
At issue for the Beam workers is both that new contract, and also ongoing staffing shortages that have demanded 60 to 80 hour work weeks from employees as a normal situation, the hiring of temporary workers rather than new regular hires when those shortages are addressed, and disregarding seniority in work assignments.
