The ‘Big Beer’ conference organised by EFFAT with the support of its Global Federation, the IUF, and which also included participation from the European Transport Workers Federation (ETF) - was attended by over 100 key trade union officials from Europe, North America, South America, Africa & Asia. Delegates discussed the common challenges they face defending their jobs, their terms and conditions of employment and work/life balance in the face of outsourcing, cost cutting & the use of precarious employment. They agreed to use and promote the new website to help them develop their global strategies to combat these threats.

The website builds on the success of a UK based website - Drayman Unite - which has already demonstrated the potential that online communication has for trade unionists in the beer industry. EFFAT thinks that beerworkers.org can replicate and even surpass that success on a global scale by allowing all organised workers in ‘big beer’ - including those outsourced in logistics companies and other service providers - to exchange information and make common cause in pursuit of their goals.

EFFAT’s General-Secretary, Harald Wiedenhofer, said: “these new tools can really help to strengthen solidarity amongst organised beer workers, not only in Europe but throughout the world. This is good news for all the ordinary people working in the beer industry. The jet-setting multi-millionaires who make up the top management of these globalised companies should be aware that the days in which they can use national ‘divide and rule’ strategies to control their global workforce are fast coming to an end”.