Pacific Western Brewing employees are still waiting to hear if they face layoffs over the Christmas season.
A dispute over the way provincial liquor taxes are applied to brewers has put PWB in the position of perhaps having to stop making beer for the rest of the year at their Prince George factory.
According to PWB sources, they brought this problem to the provincial government's attention more than two years ago, as they neared the production threshold that would kick in a new tax level that would turn a healthy profit into a crushing financial loss. The Liquor Distribution Branch has been working on changes since that time.
On Nov. 14, the Liquor Distribution Branch announced a new set of tax rates, apparently to address the problems. The specifics of those changes are now in dispute. Minister responsible Rich Coleman is expected to make a clarification statement in the near future, but until he does, the Prince George brewery's assembly line has to count cans and shut down as soon as the 160,000 hectalitre threshold is reached.
"If the government tells us we're going to be taxed at the higher rate back to zero production, that amounts to a $10 million hit for us. We can't absorb that kind of hit," said PWB's comptroller Dave Heffelfinger who arrived at the factory Thursday from the company's administration base in the Lower Mainland.
He said that without direction from Coleman, the company was in no position to make a decision. The 160,000 mark is expected to be reached by Tuesday at the latest.
Neil Glazier, the plant chairman for PWB's union negotiating committee said there are 47 unionized employees, non-unionized office staff, and drivers, suppliers, and other stakeholders in the brewery's activities who stood to lose.
According to Glazier, the workers are in full support of management on this issue.
"We see what the government has proposed as just streamlining the tax system," he said. "The company would still be paying their taxes, just a more sensible scale. To me, the way the system is now just stifles any growth."
The worst-affected of the workers would be the youngest employees who have less seniority, Glazier explained. Three of their workers are former employees of Lakeland Mills, which was destroyed in a deadly fire in April.
Glazier said there was also a supply and demand principle working against PWB should they have to hit the pause button for the remainder of 2012. The floor space in retail stores normally devoted to PWB products is negotiated, he explained. With no PWB beer to sell, the shelves would be stocked by some other brewery's bottles and cans. When the PWB assembly line rolls again, he explained, that retail space would possibly be lost forever to PWB competitors, none of whom manufacture in the Prince George region.
