Op-Ed: Anheuser Busch Executive's Bonuses Double First Half 2009

For the first half of 2009, the executives at Anheuser busch in St. Louis have doubled their bonuses while laying off workers and cutting costs.

It's virtually impossible to have lived in the city of St. Louis for any length of time and not know somebody who was involved with Anheuser Busch.. They either worked for them or for one of their suppliers, or worked for some other company that supported them. Or, they worked at one of the attractions owned by Busch, like Grant's farm. And if you were fortunate enough to have worked for Busch in the past, you pretty much had it made. It was a union job, the pay was excellent, and the benefits were good. Hell, you even got a couple of free cases of beer every month and a special place to watch the 4th of July fireworks on the parking lot. Sometimes the company would rent out places like the St. Louis Zoo or Six Flags so its employees could enjoy a special day all by themselves. Not to mention all of the free Cardinals tickets because of their long, long association with them. The stadium was, and still is, named after them. And St. Louis was loyal to Busch. We loved our royal first family. When one of the Busch's was involved in a high speed car chase with the police when he was mistakenly identified as a drug dealer, the Chief of Police quickly apologized personally and police officers washed his car for him. The tavern owners also knew which side of their bread was buttered. You'd be hard pressed to find a corner bar in the city that didn't have a Busch sign on it. And Anheuser Busch was rewarded by its employees by making it one of the largest breweries in the world and Budweiser the world's best selling beer. So you can imagine the shock when this St. Louis institution was sold to InBev, the world's largest brewer. InBev is the Belgium-based brewery that makes Stella Artois and a number of other European beers. InBev had a reputation that it was all about making money and locals feared that they would have massive layoffs and cost cutting. Everybody in St. Louis, including its elected representatives were outraged and expressed concern. But the executives of InBev did a good job convincing everybody that wouldn't happen. They assured us that there wouldn't be that many layoffs and that things would go on being just the same as before they bought out the company. They even said that things would be better because the company would be bigger and have more sales. But now, according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the company has typically done just the opposite of what they said they would do. A lot of employees have been laid off and InBev just announced that its corporate executives would get record bonuses this year. As a matter of fact, for the first half of 2009, their bonuses doubled over what they were the previous year. So it looks like all that talk was just about the equivalent of a glass of warm beer and just about as easy to swallow