Busch Strikers Reject Entest Offer in Contract Negotiations

Sixteen striking August A. Housch employees yesterday unanimously reported the beer company's latest offer clamed at ending a 19-day-old walkout as its Fast Candridge distribution plant.

The union objected to a proposed exchange of sick days for a wage increase, as well as adjustments in shift schedules and health benefits, according to John Murphy, a negotiator for Teamsters Local 122, which represents the striking workers.

The 16 clerical employees walked off their jobs on October 20 in an attempt to speed up talks in which they sought to be included in the company's collective bargaining agreement.

The strike has also included 130 truck drivers and warehousemen at the plant who are striking in support of t he clerical workers.

"Management is asking the workers to fund their own raise," Murphy said. "It's like robbing Peter to pay Paul."

Busch spokesman Wayne Charness could not predict the effect of the union's rejection on further negotiations. "We are going to have to wait and see," he said. Charness would not reveal the details of the management's offer, hammered out at a weekend-long negotiating session.

Murphy said the union "will be prepared to sit down with the employer to recommence negotiations" as soon as the federal mediator schedules a meeting. But he said that both sides were "pretty far apart" and predicted the strike would last at least another two to three weeks.

The 130 workers, all of them members of Local 122, Murphy said, "are not going back until these 16 people get a contract."

Last week, 50 truck drivers and warehousemen picketed outside Harvard's Busch-Reisinger art museum because of Busch family contributions to the museum's construction.

Later that day, the Cambridge City Council unanimously passed a resolution backing the strikers.

Morale among the strikers is high, according to Murphy, who adds that "management's ridiculous offer today has rejuvenated" their enthusiasm for the strike.

The workers are asking people in Boston not to buy Budweiser, Michelob or Busch beers, which August Busch, a subsidiary of Anheuser Busch, distributes in Boston. Union officials have said that about half of the area retailers are honoring the boycott.

Meanwhile, Budweiser deliveries are confining in Boston although methods of distribution are some what difference from pre-strike days. The company him imported managers In an other plants to take the place of striking workers and him hired a private security force to protect the drivers on their routes.

A typical delivery is a convoy of the beer truck, a car filled with security men, and another car with union members inside with literature urging retailers and pedestrians not in purchase-the-beer.