United Brewery Workers Records

In 1973, after many years of sometimes violent jurisdictional disputes with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), the International Union of United Brewery, Flour, Cereal, Soft Drink and Distillery Workers of America merged with its arch-rival, becoming the Brewery and Soft Drink Conference of the IBT. Founded in 1886 as the National Union of Brewery Workmen, the union was largely composed of German immigrants. Its convention proceedings and publications were printed in German until 1903 and bilingually until 1917.

Affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) from the time of its founding, the United Brewery Workers Union withdrew from the AFL in 1946 to affiliate with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). A particularly violent series of jurisdictional battles between the United Brewery Workers and the Teamsters took place in Pittsburgh in 1946 which included strikes, picket lines, street fights and lawsuits. What became known as the “Pittsburgh Beer War” was the subject of a Congressional investigation in 1947.

The decision to merge with the Teamsters stemmed from the closing of hundreds of local breweries in the 1950s and 1960s as well as the expanded competition with large national brewers such as Anheuser-Busch. Due to the numerous name changes the union undertook over the years and to the length of its name at the time of the merger, the collection is referred to as The United Brewery Workers Records.