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Norwegian brewery union fights tax proposal

Posted to the IUF website 28-Jul-2004

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The IUF-affiliated Norwegian Food and Allied Workers Union (Norsk N�rings- og Nytelsesmiddelarbeiderforbund-NNN) is opposing a government proposal to eliminate the basic tax on bottles/cans in the brewery industry. This tax would be replaced by increasing taxes on production. The effect would be to make bottled beer more expensive and canned beer cheaper.

The NNN believes that this proposal would destroy the brewery industry in Norway, by making it harder to sustain smaller breweries and local production. In Sweden Pripps would not have been able to shut down production in Stockholm and Gothenburg and centralize it at Falkenberg if there had been a similar fee on disposable packages in Sweden as there has been until now in Norway.

The NNN refutes the government's unfounded argument that the fee no longer has an environmental impact. Not only would the whole recycling system collapse, but the resulting centralization of production would contribute to pollution by requiring more long-distance transport.

Coca Cola has declared that if the tax proposal is accepted it would centralize its production in the Oslo area and introduce disposable packaging.