Granville Island Brewing temporarily closes as union workers strike begins

The owners of Vancouver’s Granville Island Brewing, Molson Coors, is temporarily closing the brewery to “minimize disruptions” as union workers begin to strike.

Gathering to rally outside the brewery Saturday, union workers say their employer doesn’t pay them enough, and they can’t “even afford the beer they sell.”

“We are owned by Molson, which is a multi-billion-dollar company. They can pay us what we are asking, it’s only a little more. They can afford to shut down the entire site on a busy day but they can’t afford to pay us – it doesn’t make any sense,” worker Farya Abdiannia told CityNews.

Abdiannia says if she was paid more, she would be able to live independently, something she is currently unable to do.

“We want a liveable wage for the city. It’s expensive to live here,” she said.

Aaron Nakonechny is one of the Union workers at Granville Island Brewing and helped organize Saturday’s rally. He says he is disappointed that Molson Coors won’t agree to their wage demands.

“Molson is willing to lose thousands of dollars every day rather than pay a selection of its workers literally cents,” he said.

“The negotiation [that] took place had gone on for two days and it fell apart on day two. We were trying to throw some numbers, a wage that would represent the proper amount of money people need to live in Vancouver, and we came at them with an offer and they shut us down. And we are still up at the table and they weren’t willing to talk about it further.”

In a statement to CityNews, Molson Coors’ Canadian Craft Wing says they’ve done “…everything we can to get a deal done, including offering raises on top of current pay, which is already above Vancouver’s living wage. We have also proposed mediation to help us reach a positive agreement, which the union has refused.”

According to Molson Coors, the company is the fifth largest beer company in the world, with net sales reaching over USD$10 billion in 2022.

“As you go through the tiers, we are tapping out at $21 an hour, and that’s not including premiums to be fair, but not everyone is getting premiums,” Nakonechny said of the current wages available to workers.

He says the new wages Molson Coors is offering aren’t enough, and right now, with the high cost of living in Vancouver he is barely getting by.

“I am barely scuffing, I am barely hitting that rental price, and on top of that we have electricity bills, food, or saving for my future. If I want to go to school, It’s not feasible,” he said.

Union workers plan to strike until they come to an agreement with Molson Coors.