The media sold you a Christmas shortage scare. The reality? A textbook case of geographic wage suppression that reveals how big brewers really operate.
You probably saw the headlines. “Guinness shortage looms!” “Christmas pints at risk!” “Strike threatens supply!”
All bollocks. The real story is far more uncomfortable for Diageo.. and far more important for anyone who cares about how the beer industry actually works.
What Actually Happened at Diageo Belfast
As of today, December 12, 2025, workers at Diageo’s Belfast facility are on strike until December 20th over pay. Not just any facility.. this is the global packaging hub for Guinness 0.0, the product that’s driven much of Diageo’s recent success.
Sales grew nearly 50% year-over-year, making it the UK’s best-selling alcohol-free beer. This success helped push Diageo to $2.5 billion in global net profits this year.
The striking workers? They’re the ones who actually made that happen.
Their demand is simple: close the pay gap with workers doing identical jobs at Diageo’s Runcorn site in England. Diageo’s response? “Local market conditions.” Translation: we pay Belfast workers less because we can.
The “Christmas Shortage” That Never Was
Let’s clear this up immediately: there was never going to be a Christmas Guinness shortage. The liquid you’re drinking was brewed weeks ago. The stock for Christmas retail shelves was palletised and shipped to wholesaler warehouses by late November. A strike ending December 20th affects January’s restock, not December’s party season.
The Media Game: Union says “shortage coming” to apply pressure. Company says “no shortage” to undermine the strike. Media runs “GUINNESS SHORTAGE AT CHRISTMAS” because fear gets clicks. Reality gets buried.
This happens in every major labor dispute. The actual facts.. what workers do, what they earn, why they’re striking.. get lost in manufactured supply panic. So let’s talk about the actual facts.
The “Same Liquid” Smoking Gun
Here is why the pay gap is impossible to justify. Almost every drop of Guinness is brewed at St. James’s Gate in Dublin. From there, tankers transport that exact same liquid to different sites for packaging.
Some tankers go to Runcorn, Cheshire. Some tankers go to Belfast, Northern Ireland.
At both sites, workers do identical jobs:
- Receive the same beer from the same Dublin brewery
- Run it through the same high-speed canning lines
- Follow the same quality protocols
- Package it for the same supermarkets
- Meet the same production targets
Same liquid. Same job. Same employer. Same product on the shelf.
But Belfast workers get paid substantially less.. reports suggest 20% or more for equivalent roles. Diageo’s excuse? “Cost of living differences.”
The Cost of Living Excuse Falls Apart
Here’s what Diageo wants you to believe: Belfast is so much cheaper than Runcorn that lower pay is just “market adjustment.” Here’s reality in 2025:
| Category | Belfast | Runcorn | The Reality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing (1-bed Rent) | £925/mo | £850/mo | Belfast is more expensive |
| Weekly Shop (Tesco) | Identical | Identical | Identical in both cities |
| Energy | Higher | Standard | Belfast often pays more (NI grid) |
| Petrol | Same | Same | Same UK-wide pricing |
We aren’t comparing Belfast to Central London. We’re comparing Belfast to Runcorn.. an industrial town in Cheshire. The cost of living difference is marginal at best. So if cost of living doesn’t explain a 20%+ pay gap, what does?
The Real Reason: Geography as Leverage
It’s about who else is hiring within 30 miles of the factory.
The Runcorn Advantage
Runcorn sits at the heart of Northwest England’s industrial corridor. Within 27 miles you have:
- Heineken Manchester (Hulme): 200+ employees, 2.2 million pints daily, brewing Foster’s, Birra Moretti, Cruzcampo
- INEOS Runcorn: Massive chemical manufacturing complex
- Jaguar Land Rover (Halewood): Major automotive plant
- Encirc (Chester): Glass manufacturing, 1,100+ employees
If Diageo underpays a packaging technician in Runcorn, that worker can drive 20 minutes and likely get a pay rise at a chemical plant, another brewery, or a food manufacturer. Diageo has to pay competitively in Runcorn because they’re actively competing for labor.
The Belfast Trap
Now look at Belfast’s industrial landscape. The alternative manufacturing employers have been systematically dismantled:
- Michelin Ballymena (2018): 860 high-skilled jobs eliminated, no replacement
- JTI Gallaher’s Belfast (2017): 800+ well-paid production roles eliminated
- Bombardier/Spirit AeroSystems: Years of instability, multiple redundancy rounds
- Wrightbus Ballymena (2019): Administration, eventual rescue at reduced capacity
Since 2010, Northern Ireland has lost over 20,000 manufacturing jobs.
Belfast workers don’t just lack a “Heineken next door.” They’re working in a region where the alternative high-paying manufacturing employers have packed up and left. A skilled packaging technician in Belfast can’t just walk into another £35-40k manufacturing role. Those factories.. Michelin, Gallaher’s, Wrightbus.. are gone or reduced and gutted.
The Uncomfortable Truth: Runcorn workers get paid fairly not because their work is more valuable, but because they can leave tomorrow. Belfast workers get paid less because Diageo knows they’re cornered in a decimated industrial landscape with nowhere to go.
Diageo knows this. And they’ve built their pay structure around it.
What These Workers Actually Do
“Packaging” sounds simple. It’s not.
- Operating multi-million pound high-speed canning lines
- Quality control testing every batch
- Maintaining food safety standards
- Troubleshooting mechanical issues in real-time
- Meeting strict production targets under pressure
- Working rotating shifts including nights and weekends
This isn’t unskilled labor. These are trained technicians operating sophisticated equipment to exacting standards with the exact same liquid, on the exact same equipment type, to the exact same specifications. The only difference is the postcode.
The Economics of Entrapment
Here’s where it gets interesting: this isn’t just Diageo being stingy.. it’s rational economic behavior given the circumstances. In Runcorn, Diageo faces a competitive labor market. Workers have outside options. The market sets the wage floor because workers can leave.
In Belfast, the labour market collapsed. Workers have limited alternatives. Diageo can suppress wages because workers’ outside options are weak or non-existent.
This is legal. This is common. This is how geographic wage suppression works across industries.
The Kicker: Diageo’s “contingency plans” for the strike probably cost more than just closing the pay gap would. Running other sites on overtime? Expensive. Shifting production? Disruptive and costly. But they do it because admitting Belfast workers deserve parity would expose the entire wage structure as exploitative geography rather than “market conditions.”
What This Reveals About Brewing
This dispute pulls back the curtain on how major brewing companies operate:
- First: The product you’re buying is made by workers you’ll never meet, under conditions you’re never told about. Guinness 0.0’s 50% growth story was built on Belfast workers’ labour.. workers now on strike because they’re paid 20%+ less than their English counterparts.
- Second: “Market rate” is often a euphemism for “what we can get away with paying.” When companies cite “regional variations,” they frequently mean “we pay less where workers have fewer options.”
- Third: Profitability doesn’t flow down unless workers have leverage. Diageo made $2.5 billion in profit. Guinness 0.0 drove much of that. But profit doesn’t flow down unless workers can force it.
The Broader Picture
We’re living through the biggest pub crisis in British history. Energy costs, business rates, changing habits.. pubs are under pressure from every direction.
But the bigger story? The hollowing out of regional manufacturing that creates these wage traps. When Michelin closes Ballymena, it’s not just 860 jobs lost. It’s 860 workers who can no longer threaten to leave if they’re underpaid. It’s 860 reasons why the next employer can offer less.
Runcorn hasn’t suffered this collapse. Northwest England’s industrial base remains robust. That’s why Diageo pays Runcorn workers fairly.. not generosity, but economic necessity. Belfast workers are paying the price for decades of industrial decline.
The Bottom Line
Belfast workers are on strike until December 20th to close a pay gap that exists solely because they don’t have a Heineken brewery or INEOS plant down the road. They’re processing the same liquid, on the same equipment, for the same company, contributing to the same $2.5bn profit.
But they’re paid 20%+ less because Diageo knows they’re trapped in a region that lost 20,000+ manufacturing jobs. That’s not a market rate. That’s structural wage suppression.
When you buy Guinness 0.0, you’re funding a business model where workers producing the UK’s best-selling alcohol-free beer are paid substantially less than their English counterparts.. not because their work is different, not because their costs are lower, but because they can’t easily leave.
The real story isn’t about Christmas pints. It’s about whether we’re okay with that.
Sources: Irish News, Just Drinks, The Drinks Business, Food Manufacture, Personnel Today, NISRA, Labour Force Survey, PropertyPal, Rightmove, ONS