I find this whole thing absolutley disgusting! The company made a significant number of redundancies not two years ago, and now are putting the workers through the stress of it all over again, accept this time its 160 of them that will lose thier jobs. Many of the workers are 50+, having put in 30 odd years at this site. Many of them will be unable/find it tough to find employment again. The site itself is not actually losing money, its just not making as much as the greedy company would like. Why are hardworking, skilled people, being laid off, only to be replaced by agency supplied Eastern europeans who need to be trained up and are not nearly as qualified???? Beacause they will do the job for minimum wage. Its horrific. For those that do stay, the conditions look dire, understaffed ETC. Hope somethings is resolved, and good luck to all the workers

Merlin, The Voice of Reason wrote:

GARY BOWERS wrote: This is just the tip of the Iceberg. Stopping SMOKEING in Pubs and Clubs has killed the Old British Pub, 10`s of 000`s of Jobs will go for ever just because of a bit of SMOKE! I hope all you people out there who shun the Smokers will be Very Happy to pay for it!! Loss of revenue from beer, wines & Spirits also the loss with people stopping Smoking, we will have to find the Money to keep the Poor People who can`t find a Job, I just hope the Non-Smoking lobbyist have lots of saving because you will need it! ARE YOU ALL HAPPY NOW?????

Yes, I feel sorry for those who end up losing their jobs and I hope they find alternative employment quickly. However, please do not blame the non-smokers for this. It is smokers who are staying away from pubs (although I suspect this will be temporary). I go to a pub to drink, not smoke. Can't smokers last for a couple of hours without a fag? How weak-willed and lily-livered!! And, Gary, any loss of revenue from this temporary drop in alcohol sales in pubs will be compensated, presumably, by increased in sales of booze in the supermarket and the off-licence, from smokers drinking in their smoke filled living rooms? There will also be a dividend for the NHS, resulting from reduced cancer, stroke and heart disease treatment costs.

Well, Merlin.
For a start it IS the non smokers who brought about the smoking ban, and it's not the fact we can't smoke that's stopping people going to the pub, it's the ridiculous price and tax increases.
There won't be a big enough increase in supermarket sales to compensate for pub losses, which will lead to more job losses across the brewing industry. Home drinking is not the answer, I can't think of too many people with a pool table, dartboard, jukebox and seating for a couple of dozen people.
Finally, there will NOT be a dividend for the NHS as taxation from cigarettes raises about four times what is spent treating "smoking related" illnesses.
So Merlin, you happen to be magically wrong on all three counts.

if i worked at the brewery i would take my redundancy and start a buy british beer campaign.there has never been a better time to drink real ale.i was a stella man but theres no way an englishman is going to drink a lager which is from a country that so many of our relatives died in during the hell of war and have the belgians corporate greed pay us back by choosing money before men.we will fight them on the beaches,in the bowling alley

out and about, your comments are spot on. They are creating new roles for team leaders and managers so that they wont lose there jobs. Its the little folks like us that will suffer because they are replacing us with agency and temps who have already started working there! Before long there will only be agency and temps employed there!

is it true inbev have sacked all the managers for little reason and then brought in foriegners who are talking to and treating people in a disgusting way too?and that they have closed the canteen on nights and weekends?and are asset stripping?and threatening people with the sack if they have an accident?

observer wrote:
Did I see somewhere that 27 pubs a week, or a day even?? were closing.
Things started going downhill following the Tory beer orders.Speculators started playing Monoply with the pub estates of local breweries that had had a stake in the communities. Then the competition with Sky footy and supermarket carryouts to drink round the telly at home. Then we come to the present incompetents at Westminster - destroyed the Bingo industry with double taxation,smoking ban and gaming machine regulations. Same with the pubs - smoking ban etc. The industry on its knees and Darling bumps the tax up on the pretext of curbing binge drinking.
Who do you think you are kidding Mr Darling. What a plonker!!

It was only a matter of time when Labour put tax up on beer as they have to recoup the money as not so many people arnt smoking now.
BLAME THE SNOBS

The total number of redundancies between the three sites is in the region of 390. Does the management of these breweries expect the remaining workers to run themselves into the ground. I think if you sliced the managers in two they would`nt bleed but read InBev through and through. Picking up on a point from, anon , all they want to do is fill the place with Temps and such so they do`nt have to pay sickness and holiday payments. So getting a bigger bonus for themselves and " The Company ".
Role back the days when a brewery was run by managers who new their staff by name and treated them like human beings and not as part of the furniture.

In the article it states that " Many Staff fro Boddingtons transferred to Samlesbury ". This is in fact not quite true as only a handful were employed, in fact there were less than 20. The said company took revenge on the workers for trying to save their livelihoods and promised but did not fulfill the promise.
Yet again its a spack in the face of the workers that a foreign owners can treat them with contept as they do abroad. Come the Revolution Brothers.

GARY BOWERS wrote:
This is just the tip of the Iceberg.
Stopping SMOKEING in Pubs and Clubs has killed the Old British Pub, 10`s of 000`s of Jobs will go for ever just because of a bit of SMOKE!
I hope all you people out there who shun the Smokers will be Very Happy to pay for it!!
Loss of revenue from beer, wines & Spirits also the loss with people stopping Smoking, we will have to find the Money to keep the Poor People who can`t find a Job, I just hope the Non-Smoking lobbyist have lots of saving because you will need it!
ARE YOU ALL HAPPY NOW?????

Yes, I feel sorry for those who end up losing their jobs and I hope they find alternative employment quickly.

However, please do not blame the non-smokers for this. It is smokers who are staying away from pubs (although I suspect this will be temporary). I go to a pub to drink, not smoke. Can't smokers last for a couple of hours without a fag? How weak-willed and lily-livered!!

And, Gary, any loss of revenue from this temporary drop in alcohol sales in pubs will be compensated, presumably, by increased in sales of booze in the supermarket and the off-licence, from smokers drinking in their smoke filled living rooms?

There will also be a dividend for the NHS, resulting from reduced cancer, stroke and heart disease treatment costs.

i've over 20 yrs in at the brewery and this annoucment has ripped the heart out of many of us.they say there is to many people for the amount of beer we produce yet we still employ agency/temps to keep the lines running that one really needs explaining to us.it's not just samlesbury being hit magor have also announced a similar number of jobs to go and wellpark have announced 7.2 words come to mind.CORPORATE GREED

For the last couple of months I've had a google alert on "redundancies" because we are wanting to let folk who have been made redundant about our franchise offering - in case they are wanting to have a career change as a result of their circumstances. I can tell you that out of the 468 companies that I've recently approached who are making redundancies only 1 has said they are having a jobs fair or helping their staff find alternative jobs in any way. The rest seem only to be dumping their staff without a care for their futures. That I feel is a disgrace, especially when some of the staff being made redundant will have worked loyaly for those companies for years.
What a shame that at a time when these workers need all the help they can get - the companies who are placing them in that position aren't passing on information about the alternatives out there for them.

www.homefinderuk.com

This is just the tip of the Iceberg.
Stopping SMOKEING in Pubs and Clubs has killed the Old British Pub, 10`s of 000`s of Jobs will go for ever just because of a bit of SMOKE!
I hope all you people out there who shun the Smokers will be Very Happy to pay for it!!
Loss of revenue from beer, wines & Spirits also the loss with people stopping Smoking, we will have to find the Money to keep the Poor People who can`t find a Job, I just hope the Non-Smoking lobbyist have lots of saving because you will need it!
ARE YOU ALL HAPPY NOW?????

Did I see somewhere that 27 pubs a week, or a day even?? were closing.
Things started going downhill following the Tory beer orders.Speculators started playing Monoply with the pub estates of local breweries that had had a stake in the communities. Then the competition with Sky footy and supermarket carryouts to drink round the telly at home. Then we come to the present incompetents at Westminster - destroyed the Bingo industry with double taxation,smoking ban and gaming machine regulations. Same with the pubs - smoking ban etc. The industry on its knees and Darling bumps the tax up on the pretext of curbing binge drinking.
Who do you think you are kidding Mr Darling. What a plonker!!

Unfortunately this will only just be the start of it all. After the Labour Government shafted the working chap yet again in the last budget, less of us will be going out having a couple of pints. It's typical of Labour, they can't see the bigger picture, the knockon effect. I would like to think i'm wrong, but i doubt it.