Season 3, Episode 96

Minnesota craft brewery workers organize for good pay and benefits

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Guest Name:


Sheigh Freeberg

Guest Website:


uniteherelocal17.org

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UNITE HERE! Local 17 Secretary-Treasurer Sheigh Freeberg joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast and discussed his efforts to unionize craft breweries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Freeberg appeared on AWF in celebration of National American Craft Beer Week.

UNITE HERE! Local 17 represents more than 6,000 workers in hotels, restaurants, sports complexes, convention centers and the airport in Minneapolis, Saint Paul and the surrounding suburbs. 

While many large breweries employ union labor and offer their workers health insurance and benefits, most small craft breweries do not. Unfortunately, this has led to considerable worker exploitation among some craft breweries, he said. 

He told the story of the first Minnesota craft brewery he organized, Fair State Brewing Cooperative, and is now working to organize more craft breweries in Minnesota. 

Listen to the entire episode to learn more about these topics.


America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.

America’s Work Force Union Podcast is brought to you in part by our sponsors: AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Musicians Local 4, Alliance for American Manufacturing, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes-IBT, Boyd Watterson, Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, Communication Workers of America, Mechanical Insulators Labor Management Cooperative Trust, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 50, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 6, Ironworkers Great Lakes District Council, Melwood, The Labor Citizen newspaper, Laborers International Union of North America, The National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, North Coast Area Labor Federation, Ohio Federation of Teachers, United Labor Agency, United Steelworkers.

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