The 1970s Beer Boycott Inspiring Amazon Organizers Today
Over the Course of a Decade, a Diverse Bay Area Coalition Convinced Coors to Change Its Employment Practices
In 1973, San Francisco beer delivery drivers were at odds with local beer distributors over low wages, union-busting efforts, and employment discrimination. Distributors of the Colorado-based Coors Brewing Company were particularly notorious—their parent company went as far as to require pre-employment polygraph tests to weed out supposedly undesirable hires. The drivers, members of the Teamsters union Local 888, decided to strike, and to call for a boycott of Coors beer. By the fall of 1974, the boycott included LGBTQ consumers, Chicanx and Latinx organizations, Black activists, and Native American community …
