Their Masters Voice
By Mitch Berg
Sunday liquor sales.
All of the states bordering Minnesota have it. Most of the people of Minnesota want it. The ones that don’t, really don’t care about the issue all that much.
And for alcohol retailers in border cities, it’s a significant economic issue.
Seems like a no-brainer, right?
Not when the Teamsters get involved:
Even though the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) possesses a majority in the state House and state Senate, it does not retain complete free will in terms of policy adjustments (but who does?); the Teamsters lobby (like many unions) has an uncanny ability to get elected officials of the DFL variety to acquiesce to their views.
This past week Ed Reynoso, the Teamster’s Union political director, pulled a few strings with DFL leaders to stop the sale of growlers (a practice becoming popular in the taprooms of microbreweries around the state) on Sunday. He did this because an unnamed liquor distribution company, which employs some of his members, claims it would reopen contracts due to the legal changes made by the law.
Acouple of phone calls from a couple of unions to a couple of DF hours, and it looks like Sunday liquor sales are toast for the next year or two.
It’s the Minnesota way.
April 18th, 2014 at 11:32 am
“Damn the will of the people, we’ve got a minority special intrest to be concerned about!”
April 18th, 2014 at 11:40 am
So, it’s them union guys who took away my Sunday beer?
April 18th, 2014 at 12:17 pm
To solve this….the craft brewers who want Sunday sales need to pay a “tribute” each year to the DFL. Maybe they can do the Jesse Jackson thing and also find a nice cushy job for the son of a high ranking DFL legislator. (That was how Coke got Jackson off their back)
April 18th, 2014 at 2:25 pm
Well, that’s reassuring. I was afraid the Sunday Liquor Ban was a case of fundamentalist Christians using the Legislature to impose their values on the rest of us, in which case the ban should have been overthrown long ago, when the DFL did away with bans on fornication, gambling, sodomy . . . you know, all the “moral” crimes that are so hateful and divisive in an enlightened and licentious society. Good to know there’s a solid public policy reason rooted in economics and common sense for us to disregard The Will of the People.
April 20th, 2014 at 12:44 pm
Mitch:
This makes no sense! Let me explain.
Assuming that the law is passed management will have to go to the union to open the contract to have members work on Sunday’s. So:
* If management wants to try to change anything else the union only has to say no!
* If management wants work rules to allow members on Sunday’s to work they can ask for overtime or extra pay to work on Sunday (a win).
so why is this bad for the unions?
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
April 21st, 2014 at 3:54 pm
The point about banning growlers piques my interest. If indeed it is mostly small brewers hurt by the growler ban and ban on Sunday sales at brewers’ pubs, might we wonder whether the Teamsters want this done because people have smaller portions of real beer than “optimized for drinkability” swill like Bug Light and Coors? And they get paid not by the dollar value of what they ship, but by the weight and volume…..so if brewpubs prosper, they get hit hard, because drinkers start having a pint of something drinkable instead of a gallon of something that ain’t. And I’m guessing that a lot of small brewers would be glad to dispense with the Teamsters altogether.
Does Minnesota require that liquor distribution be done not by brewers, but by distributors, perchance? And are most distributors–by chance or law–closed shops?