BIG trouble brewing at A/B-InBev

[prrriiide]

After reading the comments of current and former employees of AB/InBev following this article, I don't think I want to send my hard-earned dollars there. SWMBO will have to find another brand of yellow fizzy. The comments about the pension are very troubling, because it looks like a straight-up swindle in order for the InBev execs to split $1 BILLION dollars in a couple of years.

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/05/02/bitter-brew-the-continued-budweiserinbev-culture-clash/

As an example of the ridiculousness of cost cutting: At the end of last year, employees couldn’t buy any new office supplies, rather had to get approval for used pens and pencils from another brewery.

How cheap is InBev? Well, they recycle the same brewer’s yeast FIFTEEN TIMES!

The kicker in the whole deal is the bonus the top 40 or so people in the company will get when they pay the note off from the take-over. They will split somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 BILLION. So that explains why they wouldn’t give you air if they had you in a jar, if it meant saving a dollar. It’s all about the money, their money. It’s not the about dream, it’s not the about culture and it sure the heck isn’t about the people.

An AB product hasn’t touched these lips in months! Just from a sanitation perspective, I would not want to drink something that’s been bottled on a machine that hasn’t been cleaned for 2 weeks! You should see the microbe counts in the beer they’re letting out the door. And at the end of the day, buying a Bud is supporting Brito and his thugs. You just can’t do it.

They’re so “frugal”, they shut the heat off in the office to save money. I’m sure OSHA would be proud.

 

[Hammy71]

Wow. (You'll have to cut and paste to get the link to work.) Sad reading the (ex)/employee comments. Even sadder is, in America today...that's how almost every corporation is. Most companies don't give a rat's arse about their employees. Guess the ride is over.

 

[Homercidal]

I'd say no big deal about recycling the yeast though.

And I could certainly continue to live on without ever buying another one of their products.

 

[Schlenkerla]

I worked at a place where they micro managed spending. They would set a monthly spending threshold. After several months they would hit the limit at day 3. At the time it was hard to tell when you hit the limit because they said nothing about it to anybody. Well this one time I placed an order for some fuses for the main assembly lines. These were long lead time fuses. well when the last one blew, several hundred people couldnt work for days. They were relatively cheap fuses too.

The management got burned bad by that policy.

 

[Saccharomyces]

The cost cutting corporate culture has been all the rage in the last decade, and along with it low employee morale, and lost productivity. I hope the next generation of manglers is trained to actually give a sh** about their employees, and to take a look at the big picture, since often a dollar saved cost cutting in one group ends up costing $10 elsewhere in the company, yet gets ignored because it's "not my problem".

 

[jmendez29]

I worked at a place where they micro managed spending. They would set a monthly spending threshold. After several months they would hit the limit at day 3. At the time it was hard to tell when you hit the limit because they said nothing about it to anybody. Well this one time I placed an order for some fuses for the main assembly lines. These were long lead time fuses. well when the last one blew, several hundred people couldnt work for days. They were relatively cheap fuses too.

The management got burned bad by that policy.

My last job had a similar policy for a while. Sometime around May or June, the corporate types decided that they would be short on profits by about 80 million. Not 80 in the hole, 80 less than the 650 or so that they projected. So to recoup the "lost" money, all purchases had to get approved by corporate. I regularly needed some pneumatic fittings for my machine, they cost somewhere around 2.50 each. Someone at corporate in Pennsylvania said, "We can get those locally for 2.40". So instead of approving the purchase of about 20 of them, they decided that they will buy them for the cheaper price in PA, then ship them here. Shipping cost about $15. So basic math tells me that the $2 they saved on cost was easily destroyed by the shipping cost. All the while, I'm thinking that some bean counter put that on his list of things that he did for the company to save money so he can get his raise at the end of the year.

I hate corporations.

 

[Homercidal]

I used to work at a place that was micromanaged. Not just fiscally either. Yeah we had our lean time recently here too, but out of necessity.

At the other place, you would spend hours getting 3 different quotes, usually 3 different times (because you just could NOT have gotten it right in the first place, and the owner or manager had to do SOMETHING to prove he's better than you) and by the time you added your cost in time and effort you've spent a BUNCH more than just buying what you needed from the cheapest place.

There was also extolling the virtues of the latest manager you just hired and then micromanaging them or their department until they quit, or just gave up the will to live. I seen a lot of good people walk out the door hunched over and dejected. The best ones left with a smile and finger though.

 

[Off_contstantly]

At least we've got several other good breweries in St. Louis to make up for this one.

 

[wildwest450]

I call bs. First off, if you boycott all business who have disgruntled employees, you'll starve to death. Secondly i've been in that bottling/canning room, you could literally eat off the floor.


_

 

[jbrookeiv]

Screw AB Inbev.

 

[beerloaf]

Screw AB Inbev.

Agreed!

beerloaf

 

[jsweet]

When I feel the need to consume a BMC beverage, I prefer to either buy an independent brew that is in that style (e.g. Genesee, Yeungling, or even PBR is like "half-independent" if you will (Pabst is its own company, but they do contract Miller to do the brewing), or failing that, Miller-Coors. This is just one in a long line of AB business practices that I'm just not that cool with.

 

[larrynoz]

The cost cutting corporate culture has been all the rage in the last decade, and along with it low employee morale, and lost productivity. I hope the next generation of manglers is trained to actually give a sh** about their employees, and to take a look at the big picture, since often a dollar saved cost cutting in one group ends up costing $10 elsewhere in the company, yet gets ignored because it's "not my problem".

Nicely said

 

[Hammy71]

Not a big fan of Budweiser. Can't remember the last time I bought one of their products. But, it I feel for the employees that feel/are getting screwed by a non-caring corporation. It's not always about the money.

 

[Schlenkerla]

Yeah, total cost of ownership is regularly over looked.

The place I work for buys small parts from china. They save about 500 bucks in manufacturing costs per part, 24x48 inches, 1 inch thick steel plate. They buy 5 at a time. They ship in a 40' shipping container. Mind you these are stackable. So they saved 2500 bucks. I don't know how much it costs to haul the container to the coast, then ship it, unload it, ship again, then ware house it, ship it again. Then use it and still save money.

Its not possible considering a semi is hauling a virtually empty container. I think the steel 40' shipping container out weights those five parts. Probably 200 times or more.

 

[bniesen]

I can relate. I used to work for a company that micro managed their $$ and somebody had the bright idea to farm out their circuit board fabrication and test fixtures. I worked in the circuit board fabrication dept and our whole division was shut down and everyone was laid off. They paid tens of thousands of dollars reimbursing me for my IT degree and they still laid me off which I did thank them for (the degree not the lay off).
They farmed out the manufacturing to a circuit board warehouse in FL. the same year FL got hit by 3 hurricanes in a row, by the time summer had ended they were loosing customers left and right. I had an engineer friend that worked for them and he said that all the boards that were coming in from FL had a 80% failure rate.