1953 Milwaukee brewery strike

1953 Milwaukee brewery strike
1953 Milwaukee brewery strike
Date	May 14 – July 29, 1953; (2 months, 2 weeks and 1 day)
Location	Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
Goals	Increased wages; Reduced hours; Improvements to health and pension plans; Additional holidays;
Methods	Walkout; Strike action;
Resulted in	New labor contracts favorable to the union
Parties
Brewery Workers Local 9	A. Gettelman Brewing Company; Independent Milwaukee Brewery; Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company; Miller Brewing Company; Pabst Brewing Company; Valentin Blatz Brewing Company;

The 1953 Milwaukee brewery strike was a strike action involving approximately 7,100 workers at six breweries in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The strike began on May 14 of that year after the Brewery Workers Union Local 9 and an employers' organization representing six Milwaukee-based brewing companies failed to agree to new labor contracts. These contracts would have increased the workers' wages and decreased their working hours, making them more comparable to the labor contracts of brewery workers elsewhere in the country. The strike ended in late July, after the Valentin Blatz Brewing Company (one of the smaller companies in the organization) broke with the other breweries and began negotiating with the union. The other companies soon followed suit and the strike officially ended on July 29, with union members voting to accept new contracts that addressed many of their initial concerns.