LABOR: Beer in the Lunch Pail

* One of the longest-running product boycotts in recent memory finally drew to a heady close last week. In Washington, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland crossed off the name of the Colorado-based Coors brewery from a list of sanctioned companies, ending a ten-year labor dispute. Reason for the peace declaration: Coors had agreed not to interfere with union-organizing efforts at its two plants.

The drawn-out beer boycott began in 1977, when the brewery hired nonunion workers to replace 1,500 employees who had walked off their jobs to protest a proposed labor contract. Lately, a new Coors marketing push in the Northeast has been stymied by the campaign. At such lucrative beer-drinking venues as New York City’s Shea Stadium and Boston’s Fenway Park, vendors had refused to sell the boycotted brew.