By Alison Orton

“In Bohemia, the most important beer region in Austria, the national dispute between Czechs and Germans rages, poisoning everything,” read a 1913 article in the Brauerei-Arbeiter Zeitung, the periodical for the United States National Union of Brewery Workmen [NUBW].

By Alison Orton

Despite the bad working conditions and the growing popularity of labor unions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, major breweries in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with Pilsen at the forefront, successfully resisted recognizing or negotiating with unions until after World War I.