Seven AB-InBev bosses held hostage by workers
An AB-InBev spokesperson said the brewer was struggling with the "structural decline of the beer market." Germany and Belgium seem to be affected most by the decline in consumption, which is why job losses in these two markets are expected to be highest.
In Germany 386 jobs are to go. All sectors will be affected. However, the on-trade sales team (140 people) will witness the highest number of redundancies and will be cut down to a bare minimum as visits to the on-trade shall be replaced by phone calls.
In Belgium, AB-InBev will cut 300 out of 2,700 jobs. 179 jobs in Louvain and 63 in Jupille are to go.
Luxembourg, too, will be affected, where AB-InBev plans to shut down the Diekirch brewery and relocate production of the Diekirch brand to its Louvain and Jupille plants. 63 jobs could be lost.
A relocation of the Diekirch brand to Belgian breweries might run into trouble. According to EU law (“Appellation d’origine géographique“), a product whose brand name sports a specific geographic origin can only be produced in that spot. Claude Haagen, a Luxembourg MP, on 7 January 2010 introduced an urgency motion on this issue to Luxembourg’s Parliament.
However, what really irks the burghers of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, a country of only 500,000 people who nevertheless sport the second highest per capita income in the world, is that AB-InBev’s other brewery in Luxembourg, Brasserie de Luxembourg, will benefit from the closure of the Diekirch brewery as the proceeds from the sale of Diekirch’s substantial real estate portfolio will fall to it.
