The battle between the world’s largest beer makers – Anheuser-Busch and SABMiller – got personal last week for a Wisconsin man when he lost his job.
Isac Aguero, 24, said he was fired the same day a picture appeared in The Journal Times showing him holding a bottle of Bud Light. The picture was taken while Aguero was out in downtown Racine during Mardi Crawl, and appeared as part of the Journal Times weekly “On the Town” feature depicting area nightlife.
Until last week, Aguero was a forklift operator for CJW Inc., the area’s distributor of Miller Brewing Co. products.
He said he believes he was fired unfairly. “It was a Saturday and I wasn’t at work,” he said. “They can’t tell me what beverages I can drink.”
Aguero said he learned there was a problem with the photo shortly after he showed up to work. Co-workers told him he was in trouble for the picture. He was then called into the general manager’s office and was told he was fired.
Aguero said he was not given a reason for the dismissal, and claimed he never had problems with his bosses at work. He had worked at CJW for about four years before he was fired – and had drank Bud Light even longer than that.
“Bud Light’s my beer of choice, I always drink that,” he said. “Just because I work there, do I have to change what I drink?”
Aguero said that he was never told he couldn’t drink Bud Light, and there was no reference in the employee handbook to avoiding certain drinks.