If you’re looking for a Modelo, Blue Moon or Sam Adams at your local watering hole, deli or bodega, you may soon be out of luck.
The 600 unionized workers at Manhattan Beer & Beverage Distributors went on strike Tuesday, the day their contract expired. They say the company is engaging in unfair labor practices by trying to deal directly with the employees rather than negotiate with the union and is threatening to end pensions.
Picket lines formed Tuesday morning at the distributor’s Hunts Point headquarters on E. 149th St. in the Bronx and at other facilities owned by the company on Metropolitan Ave. in Ridgewood, Queens, as well as in Wyandanch, L.I., and Suffern, N.Y., in Hudson Valley.
“We’re here fighting for fair wages,” said Manhattan Beer employee Manuel Maldonado from the picket line in the Bronx. “There’s a lot of things that we do that are unsafe. People that drink in the city, they don’t see what we do that gets that beer into the places that we do. Sometimes we go out with kegs that weigh about 160 pounds each.”
“People come here and they get hurt like it’s nothing because of slippery things, very unsafe basements,” said Maldonado, a 15-year employee with the distributor. “The pension is just the cherry on top of the cake, where it’s like, ‘OK, enough is enough. How much are you going to take away from us?’”
Manhattan Beer employees supply bars, restaurants, delis and groceries throughout New York City, Westchester, Long Island and the Hudson Valley with beer, wine and cider with their fleet of 350 trucks.
“We’re the backbone of Manhattan Beer & Beverage. We’ve helped it succeed,” said Joe Gonzalez, Jr., a beer delivery worker. “We deserve real retirement security, fair wages and respect on the job. We’re angry that they have been trying to sidestep our union and our bargaining committee on the critical issue of our pensions.”
The distribution and delivery workers are part of the Laundry, Distribution and Food Service Joint Board, Workers United/SEIU, who say that they have proposed a $1.50 raise per hour to increase pension benefits, while the company is demanding to leave the pension fund.
“That would cause drastic reductions to their future pensions and mean newer employees would have no pension benefit,” said Albert Arroyo, co-manager of the Laundry, Distribution and Food Service Joint Board, Workers United/SEIU. “Without monthly pension benefits when they retire, these workers will struggle in old age to pay for housing, groceries and other necessities of life.”
Representatives from Manhattan Beer could not immediately be reached.
Originally Published:
https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/04/15/workers-new-york-beer-distributor-strike-fair-wages-pension/