This summer saw encouraging steps forward in the drive to unionize the fast-growing cannabis industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Workers at\u00a0Cultivate Holdings<\/a>\u2018 grow facility and retail outlet in the central Massachusetts town of Leicester voted to affiliate with Local 1445 of the\u00a0United Food & Commercial Workers Union<\/a> (UFCW).\u00a0The grow facility was one of the first state-legal adult-use dispensaries on the East Coast.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not just a victory for cannabis workers at Cultivate, but for all cannabis workers. We\u2019ve set a precedent by working collectively that enables us not only to survive but to thrive,\u201d Craig Chaplin, a Cultivate employee, told\u00a0MassLive.com<\/a>\u00a0on Aug. 11.<\/p>\n The UFCW is at the forefront of the unionization effort in the industry and has launched a\u00a0Cannabis Workers Rising<\/a>\u00a0campaign. The UFCW, which calls itself the United States\u2019 largest private-sector union, represents 1.3 million people who work in supermarkets, meatpacking plants, food-processing facilities\u2014and cannabis dispensaries, mostly on the West Coast.<\/p>\n The UFCW has been organizing cannabis workers since 2010 and currently claims to represent tens of thousands employed in the industry\u2014but\u00a0progress has been limited<\/a>. The International Cannabis Business Conference\u00a0estimates<\/a>\u00a0243,700\u00a0full-time-equivalent<\/a>\u00a0jobs supported by legal cannabis coast to coast as of January 2020.<\/p>\n Only the agricultural employees at Cultivate voted to unionize, although UFCW officials said there is an ongoing campaign to organize the retail workers as well. Local 1445 secretary-treasurer Fabricio DaSilva told MassLive the union is confident more workers will want to join those \u201cwho will benefit from organizing this emerging industry.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The previous month saw two similar advances. In July, some 60 workers at the\u00a0New England Treatment Access<\/a>\u00a0cultivation facility in the town of Franklin, southwest of Boston, voted to join Local 1445. Earlier that month, employees at\u00a0Mayflower Medicinals<\/a>\u00a0in Holliston, west of Boston, also joined up with the local.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last year, more than 100 workers at\u00a0Sira Naturals<\/a>\u00a0in the towns of Milford, Needham and Somerville became the first in the Massachusetts cannabis business to unionize, signing up with Local 1445.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But this July, workers at NETA\u2019s Brookline dispensary<\/a> voted 30-9 not to unionize\u2014despite months of organizing efforts. And, as reported by\u00a0MassLive<\/a>, Local 1445 accused NETA management of firing or threatening employees at their facilities over their unionization efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a statement, NETA denied the charges. \u201cWe support everyone\u2019s right to join or not join a union, but because NETA already offers progressive wages and benefits, as well as a collaborative work environment, we don\u2019t think a union is needed,\u201d the company said. \u201cWe are in the middle of a union-organizing campaign and union tactics such as filing complaints are not uncommon.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n NETA and Local 1445 also battled it out over who would be eligible to join the union, and whether the voting process could take place by mail-in ballot in light of the coronavirus pandemic. In a May decision, a regional director for the\u00a0National Labor Relations Board<\/a>\u00a0(NLRB) ruled to allow voting by mail and found the disputed employees\u2014including a lot attendant and security personnel\u2014could take part in the election.\u00a0<\/p>\n Local 1445 saw these challenges, and the alleged retaliatory harassment and dismissals, as signs of bad faith. \u201cCompanies do that to send a kill effect into the campaign,\u201d DaSilva told MassLive. \u201cPeople are getting fired because they are joining a union.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The\u00a0Boston Globe<\/a>\u00a0noted back in February, that there were similar claims against Mayflower Medicinals and its parent company,\u00a0iAnthus Capital Holdings<\/a>. In a formal complaint to state regulators that month, Local 1445 said managers at the Holliston facility issued written warnings to two workers involved in the unionization effort for alleged minor infractions that \u201cdo not normally lead to discipline.\u201d<\/p>\n The union, in its filing with the state\u00a0Department of Labor Relations<\/a>, said the write-ups were part of an illegal anti-union campaign by Mayflower managers that also included interrogating employees and even explicitly instructing some to stop engaging in protected organizing activity.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Mayflower employs about 45 workers at its Holliston facility, which recently won a state license to expand from medical marijuana into the adult-use market. The company also operates a medical dispensary in Boston\u2019s Allston neighborhood and expects to open an adult-use outlet in Worcester this year.<\/p>\n The unionization drive at Mayflower won support from the company\u2019s 17 agricultural workers, who are exempt from many federal labor laws but protected under stronger state laws.\u00a0<\/p>\n The remaining 28 employees at the facility, such as those who process harvested flower into edibles and oils, also signed cards expressing their desire to unionize\u2014but were reluctant to proceed to a formal union election overseen by the NLRB, as management wanted. That is because cannabis remains illegal under federal law, and a ruling by the NLRB that workers at state-licensed facilities are ineligible for labor protections could set a very bad precedent for the unionization drive nationwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n Local 1445 was instead hoping to pressure Mayflower into signing a state-recognized \u201cLabor Peace Agreement,\u201d under which the company would vow to recognize the union if a majority of workers voted to form one. A precedent for this was set when Sira Naturals entered such an agreement last November, as the\u00a0Globe reported<\/a>\u00a0at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, Mayflower declined to enter a Labor Peace Agreement, and the election was held under NLRB oversight\u2014which could spell trouble down the line.<\/p>\n A\u00a0US Chamber of Commerce page<\/a>\u00a0defines a Labor Peace Agreement (LPA) as \u201can arrangement between a union and an employer under which one or both sides agree to waive certain rights under federal law with regard to union organizing and related activity. While these agreements can be negotiated voluntarily, some state and local governments have attempted to impose them on employers by passing labor peace ordinances.\u201d<\/p>\n A\u00a0law passed in California<\/a>\u00a0last year requires cannabis businesses with 20 or more employees to enter into a Labor Peace Agreement with a \u201cbona fide labor organization\u201d\u2014UFCW locals, in most cases. The LPA requirement for the city of San Francisco applies to cannabis businesses with 10 or more employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n New York\u2019s Compassionate Care Act, which established a limited medical marijuana program in the Empire State in 2014, also\u00a0included a provision<\/a> mandating LPAs.<\/p>\n However, in Michigan, a proposed requirement for cannabis businesses to enter an LPA was removed from the final version of regulations for the adult-use sector that took effect in June. The controversy over the provision revealed much about divergent views on organized labor across America\u2019s partisan divide\u2014although it was certainly an irony to see conservative Republicans coming to the defense of bosses in the cannabis biz.\u00a0<\/p>\n The state\u2019s\u00a0Marijuana Regulatory Agency<\/a>\u00a0director Andrew Brisbo told\u00a0MichicagnLive<\/a>, \u201ca Labor Peace Agreement is an agreement between an operator and a recognized labor organization to ensure that both sides come to the table.\u201d Republican state senator Aric Nesbitt countered: \u201cThese labor peace agreements are really a Mob-style shakedown of these new businesses that are growing. At least the Mob lets you get going first. They won\u2019t even issue a license unless you sign one of these labor peace agreements.\u201d<\/p>\n In a\u00a0significant ruling<\/a>\u00a0that represented an advance in resolving the federal jurisdictional dilemma, a US appeals court in Denver last year, held that protections under the\u00a0Fair Labor Standards Act<\/a>\u00a0apply to \u201call workers\u201d\u2014including those in the cannabis industry. This 1938 law was a keystone of President Franklin D. Roosevelt\u2019s New Deal, establishing a minimum wage and overtime pay for full-time workers nationwide.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, another and more insidious threat to labor in the cannabis industry has just reared its head.\u00a0UPI<\/a>\u00a0reported last month that cannabis vending machines are coming to dispensaries in Colorado and Massachusetts, to offer customers \u201ccontactless buying.\u201d A Boston-based company called\u00a0anna<\/a>\u00a0debuted the new machines at\u00a0Strawberry Fields<\/a>\u00a0in Pueblo, Colo., where customers can now buy flower, edibles and vape oils without interacting with a salesperson. More are to be installed in other dispensaries later this year, the company said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Matt Frost, founder and CEO of anna, said the machines are intended for \u201cexperienced cannabis customers who don\u2019t necessarily need that one-on-one interaction with a budtender.\u201d He emphasized the need to minimize person-to-person contact due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Customers will only need to check in with a representative in person to provide photo ID before using the machine, according to\u00a0Legal Reader<\/a>. Similar concerns have been raised about the advent of so-called \u201crobopot<\/a>\u201c\u2014grown in highly automated cultivation facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the\u00a0Boston Business Journal<\/a>\u00a0warns that \u201cthe automation could undermine a wave of unionization efforts underway at dispensaries throughout the state.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, do you think cannabis workers should unionize?<\/p>\n The post Progress, Obstacles in Cannabis Industry Unionization Push<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
This summer saw encouraging steps forward in the drive to unionize the fast-growing cannabis industry.\u00a0 Workers at\u00a0Cultivate Holdings\u2018 grow facility and retail outlet in the central Massachusetts town of Leicester voted to affiliate with Local 1445 of the\u00a0United Food & Commercial Workers Union (UFCW).\u00a0The grow facility was one of theContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,6272,170,5664],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44434,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44433\/revisions\/44434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Accusations of Anti-Union Tactics<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Federal Recognition Dilemma<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Whither Labor Peace Agreements?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Automation Threat<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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The machines are likely to be attractive to Massachusetts dispensaries, which topped $785 million in total sales since adult-use cannabis hit the legal market in the state in November 2018 and $320 million so far this year.<\/p>\n
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\nRead More: Progress, Obstacles in Cannabis Industry Unionization Push<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"