Following nearly seven months of denial, backtracking, and obfuscation, Mikkeller today announced a “reconciliation plan” to make amends with current and former employees who experienced sexual harassment, bullying, and unsafe working conditions at the company and its affiliated hospitality businesses. The global beer company, based in Copenhagen, has announced it will partner with an outside consulting firm and will engage with legal counsel to evaluate claims and potentially offer financial compensation to those who were wronged.
Mikkeller has not shared the limits of potential settlements. Employment law firm Holman Schiavone, LLC states the average settlement for a sexual harassment claim in the U.S. is $53,000. Claimants in the Mikkeller reconciliation process will not be asked to sign non-disclosure agreements with Mikkeller in order to participate, giving them the freedom to share their experiences however they wish. This is an unusual detail, given that non-disclosure or confidentiality provisions are generally an agreed-upon element of workplace settlements.
The announcement comes long after former Mikkeller employees spoke publicly about their experiences working for the company. The timeline stretches back years, during which time former employees say they brought these issues to the company’s attention.
“I’m someone who really values accountability and acknowledgment. And I’ve never gotten that from Mikkeller,” says Megan Stone, a former assistant brewer at Mikkeller San Diego who has been sharing their experience with gender-based harassment, homophobia, and unsafe working conditions at Mikkeller on social media for years. Stone has continued to work in beer, as well as speak and advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion. “It’s been kind of an open wound with the severity of the damage that occurred at Mikkeller.”
Company founder Mikkel Borg Bjergsø spent the summer of 2021 denying claims made by Stone and others, striking a combative tone in the Danish press and claiming the former employees and labor activists were trying to ruin his business. In an about-face, he issued an apology Jan. 13 as part of the reconciliation plan, stating: “I acknowledge, with sadness, the experiences we have come to know about Mikkeller’s workplaces during my time as CEO. I take responsibility for that, and I am sorry to each and every person impacted. The new Mikkeller leadership will be driving the changes that are needed, including the Reconciliation Program announced today.”
Though he has not been CEO since October 2020, Bjergsø remains the creative director and a co-owner of Mikkeller. CEO Kenneth Madsen will lead the company’s reconciliation efforts.
This reconciliation plan is the company’s first attempt to make tangible amends for the negative working conditions former employees experienced, which include harassment, bullying, intimidation, and unsafe brewing equipment. Mikkeller has brought on Kate Bailey, managing director of workplace consultancy Hand & Heart, to help orchestrate the program. Bailey is also the producer of Super Cool Toxic Workplace, a 10-part investigatory podcast about the working conditions at Mikkeller. In the course of her podcast investigation, Bailey spoke to numerous former employees of Mikkeller who experienced harm while working there, acknowledging and listening to their stories at a time when the company wasn’t. She and Mikkeller had discussions in the course of reporting her podcast, but that the process of bringing Hand & Heart on as a consultant began after the podcast had been produced, according to Bailey and Madsen.
Hand & Heart will work alongside legal counsel in various countries where Mikkeller and its affiliated companies operate in order to evaluate claims.
Madsen says he hopes the plan can be completed within a fiscal quarter (three months), but says that if the claim process registers many new and complex cases previously unknown to Mikkeller leadership, the timeframe could be longer. Here are the steps to the reconciliation plan as it has been outlined so far:
Registering cases: An online portal is now open for current or former Mikkeller employees who believe they may have workplace grievances to submit their names, contact details, and dates and locations of employment. No further details are asked for at this stage—the portal is a place for people to register as claimants. Answers to frequently asked questions are also available to claimants.
Establishing jurisdiction: Hand & Heart will begin to consult with external legal counsel that it selects in various countries where claims are registered.
Evaluating cases: Hand & Heart will contact claimants to ask for more details about their experiences, should claimants wish to proceed with a process to determine the potential for monetary compensation or free counseling. Working on a case by case basis and with claimants’ consent, Hand & Heart will consult with legal counsel and/or other third-party experts to find an outcome. Mikkeller says it “does not expect” to contest cases registered through the program.
Reconciliation: Depending on the facts of each individual’s case, as well as the demands of the current or former employee, reconciliation can take various forms. It could include financial compensation—which would be determined by legal counsel using precedent of other cases and similar settlements—as well as the potential for free professional counseling or mental health services. It could also potentially include conversations between Mikkeller leadership and claimants, should the claimants request it.
The goal, Bailey says, is to make the process organized enough to respond to all potential claims, but also responsive to a range of negative experiences people may have faced, from potential sexual harassment to unsafe working conditions. Participation in this reconciliation plan means employees will not be asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement with Mikkeller. Hand & Heart is requiring claimants to “agree not to discuss the case while [Hand & Heart] is actively investigating and documenting that case,” to preserve the integrity of that investigation; after the conclusion of the reconciliation or if the claimant withdraws from the process, this condition expires.
“We have this general framework but as cases come in, we’re going to be working to make sure we have the legal compliance and flexibility to make sure we can account for the nuance of these cases. It’s incredibly important that we’re able to make room for those nuances,” Bailey says. “In doing so, we’re also trying to facilitate a process that doesn’t involve courts and extensive legal action that wouldn’t be good for anyone. We’re able to do that because we have the cooperation of the company.”
While the company intends this to be a step toward resolving grievances, it remains to be seen whether, after years of effort, it will offer closure to those who have been wronged.
“I feel like it left me angry for a very long time. There was only so much that I could work on internally,” says Stone. “I needed that accountability and acknowledgment from their side.”
Stone intends to file a claim, but is approaching the process with a mix of cynicism and hope.
“I am trying to give Mikkeller a chance without holding too much skepticism over the situation,” Stone says. “It’s important that everyone’s story is heard because they all deserve acknowledgement to give a person whatever that person wants out of it, whether that’s closure or something else.”
Mikkeller CEO Kenneth Madsen says the process of listening to and believing former employees like Stone has taken too long.
“In hindsight you always want this process to move faster, and we should have communicated better,” Madsen says. “But I feel really really good that we’re able through Hand & Hearts and Kate Bailey to reach out to all former and existing employees with a completely neutral and objective framework for evaluation. It’s the right thing to do.”
He also acknowledges that some people who’ve had negative experiences with the company may never come forward, but he hopes the reconciliation plan encourages them to do so.
“I can only reiterate our sincere apology, anyone, anywhere in the world that has ever had a bad experience working for or with Mikkeller,” Madsen says.
For professionals in the beer and hospitality industry who have watched the Mikkeller saga unfold, it remains a cautionary tale. The organized plan now in place shouldn’t have taken months or years, says Ren Navarro, owner and operator of Beer.Diversity., a Canada-based consulting and advocacy company.
“We should always ask of breweries: If something goes wrong, what happens? … Why don’t you have a plan if things blow up with your staff, or if harassment or unsafe feelings happen?” Navarro says. “You need to understand how to put out that fire in your backyard before the neighbors have to come help you.”
Because so much time has elapsed, and because Mikkeller and some of its fans derided its critics for so long, Navarro worries that even a reconciliation plan won’t right past wrongs.
“I can’t say what I’d like to see [from Mikkeller] because we never should have gotten to this point,” she says. “I feel for every person who had to tell a story and try to defend their situations. I feel for people who couldn’t quit. I feel bad for people who did quit and wondered if they had a place in the industry. This is the year we’ve learned that a lot of really good people got destroyed by this industry that we all supposedly love so much.”
Words by Kate Bernot