Carlsberg's workers have been striking because two weeks ago the brewery limited their access to free beer to lunchtime. Previously the free beer had been available at fridges throughout the workplace all day, although it appears that the employer's expectation then and now is that the workers will limit themselves to three beers a day. The brewery's truck drivers can still take their three beers with them in the morning in case they don't get back in time for lunch!

Can you imagine this in Australia? Well, I believe that the old Newcastle Brewery had a free beer ration for its employees, and until it was taken over by CUB in 1983 the Tooth Brewery in Sydney offered a schooner of beer to its workers at morning tea (called beer break), lunch, afternoon tea and knock-off.

In my column in The Herald today I write that the attitude in Australia to drinking on the job has changed dramatically within a couple of decades. In many jobs in and beyond journalism there were the fellows who kept a bottle in a brown paper bag in a locker, and it was common for both office and outside workers to cram schooners at lunchtime. The men would go off as a group to the pub at lunchtime and they'd return noisily 30 or 45 minutes later. I wouldn't go because I drink only at night, but in one particular night-time job we'd get a meal break of just 20 minutes and it was a hectic 20 minutes! Inebriation at work, and by that I mean those who'd arrive at work in that state or move into it very shortly thereafter, was often protected by fellow workers and tolerated or ignored by supervisors.

The breath that betrayed a recent swig of spirits seemed common in the business and retail world, and I recall that a menswear assistant who accompanied me into a dressing cubicle to check a coat in the mirror took the opportunity to swig from a flask bottle kept in his own coat.

What are your memories of those days of the work-based tipple?