Anheuser-Busch InBev Belgium breweries halts production over job cuts

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world's largest brewer has stopped production in its home country of Belgium for the past two weeks as disgruntled workers have blockaded the company's breweries over job cut disputes.

Workers began picketing and erecting blockades outside the company's breweries at Leuven, Jupille and Hoegaarden two weeks ago and have halted supplies and raw materials and other packaging materials from entering or leaving the plants.

The blockades began two weeks back, when the Belgum-based brewer with nearly 25 per cent of the global market share announced plans to cut 800 jobs or 10 per cent of its 8,000 Western European workforce across the region. (See: Anheuser-Busch InBev axes 800 jobs across Western Europe)

With the layoffs spread across Belgium, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, the news had not gone down well with workers at its brewery in Belgium, where 263 jobs out of a workforce strength 2,700 were affected.

Soon after the announcement, workers at the company's brewery in the Belgian town of Leuven, where the brewer also has its headquarters, had taken nearly a dozen managers as hostages in a office near to the plant on 8 January.

The management has already held two rounds of talks with the workers and the union though no agreement has been reached. Even as the company and unions planned a third round of talks, stocks of the brewer's famous brands like Stella Artois, Leffe and Beck's were running low at stores across Belgium.