The Axe Continues to Fall at Anheuser-Busch InBev

And this time more St. Louis jobs were on the chopping block. The once-local company announced last Friday afternoon -- prime time for issuing bad news press releases -- that a "small number" of domestic brewery workers were being laid off.

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​Via the St. Louis Business Journal:

Jim Brickey, vice president of people, said in a statement: "In our breweries today, a small number of salaried employees were notified that their jobs were eliminated. These were difficult decisions to make, but important for the organization."

It is unclear whether additional job cuts are planned.

"As an ongoing practice, we continually assess our resources to reflect our current business strategies and needs," Brickey said. "In some areas of the business, we are making operational changes that may result in selected job eliminations or additions in various locations."

Unlike their newly unemployed counterparts in Belgium, the St. Louis workers did not respond to the announcement by taking their bosses hostage.

AB-InBev is still trying to end a worker-organized "blockade" of one of its factories across the pond. The company obtained a court order to stop the protest but the union laborers are threatening to strike if the situation isn't resolved amicably.

Also via the local Business Journal:

Belgian workers have blocked the entrances to A-B InBev's plants in Leuven and Jupille for a week and at Hoegaarden since Tuesday in protest of the brewer's plan to cut 263 jobs from its 2,700-employee Belgian work force.

Mediated talks to end the protest broke off Thursday.

"Since the beginning of the week, we have said that we want to have a dialogue with our social partners," Amssoms said. "Unfortunately our social partners have refused to respond to our invitations to discuss the intentions we have proposed."

A-B InBev's beer products are disappearing from some of Europe's largest grocery store shelves as union workers block supply truck deliveries, forcing factories to run at less-than-full capacity and stop delivering beer to stores. The plants are running out of raw ingredients and packaging materials, which will eventually lead to the complete absence of some types of beer at European stores.

Expect rioting in the streets of Paris when they run out of Bud Light. Or not.