Workers Picket Shore Beer Distributor After Lockout

FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP, NJ — Workers are urging consumers to avoid buying certain brands of beer and other alcoholic drinks from local establishments after they were locked out of their workplace at Shore Point Distributing during an ongoing contract dispute.

Friends and family members of employees of the Freehold Township-based company began posting on Facebook late Sunday night, criticizing the company for its actions.

"Please do not support any of the products they distribute! They have left my families and many others without a paycheck and without health benefits by locking their employees out without any negotiations all while the employees have worked without a contract for the last month!" Kristin Valenzano of Wall wrote.

According to a report in the Asbury Park Press, the workers were locked out Sunday night as a result of an ongoing contract impasse. Representatives Teamsters Union 701, which respresents the employees, told the Asbury Park Press that the previous contract expired March 31, and on Thursday, the company presented what it said was its final offer. The company wanted employees to accept: a three-year wage freeze; higher health insurance costs; and a move from a pension plan to a 401(k) retirement plan, the report said. The union has refused those demands but has not voted to strike, the report said.

"It is sickening when a company cares more about its bottom line than its valued employees," Christine Mortimer wrote. "They aren't asking for millions of dollars they just want their retirement, 401k and affordable healthcare for their families. It is very hard for people to back a company that doesn't back its employees."

Video posted online Monday shows dozens of employees picketing along Route 33 near the company's warehouse on Monday morning.

An email to Shore Point Distributing from the Patch did not receive a response.

At least one restaurant that purchases beer from the company has stated its intention to support the locked-out workers.

The Lighthouse Tavern in Waretown, Ocean County, announced it will not purchase any products from Shore Point Distributing while the lockout continues.

"Given my commitments to labor rights, the collective bargaining process, and solidarity with working families (I did labor rights advocacy for 15 years prior to taking over the bar when my Dad died), I have made the decision that we will not purchase products from Shore Point until this matter is resolved," Jim Keady wrote on the restaurant's Facebook page. Keady has never shied from workers' rights causes: in 1997 as a graduate assistant with the men's soccer team at St. John's University in New York he refused to wear Nike-branded products because of the company's use of underpaid workers in Indonesia to product the gear. His campaign against Nike's treatment of its workers continues to this day.

"It is not lost on me that the owners/management of Shore Point chose to take this action of bad faith on May Day — International Labor Day," Keady wrote. "Now more than ever in our nation, working families and labor rights are under attack and it is imperative that those of us in the middle class, union and non-union alike, stand together in solidarity."

Keady said that while the Lighthouse Tavern will not purchase beer or other spirits from Shore Point, they will have beer from other distributors.

"We hope you will be understanding during this time and will join us in letting Shore Point know that as beer drinkers, you care about the men and women who deliver the beer, and you want them to be bargained with in good faith," Keady wrote.

Shore Point is a major distributor of craft beers like Samuel Adams, Sierra Nevada, Leinenkugel, Blue Moon and Anchor Brewing; imports like Corona, O'Hara's, Moosehead and Molson, and familiar domestic brands such as Coors, Miller, Yeungling, Pabst and Colt 45.

Photo by Kristin Valenzano, used with permission