Unionization in the U.S. is often tied to the public sector, where roughly one-third of employees belong to unions. That rate is even higher for local government workers, such as firefighters and teachers.
Utility employees in the private sector, such as natural gas and electric power, sewage and water, also represent a large share of the unionized workforce. Together, about 17% of workers holding utilities or transportation jobs belong to unions, according to Fox Business.
Historically, the fight for collective bargaining rights in America did not come easy, and many workers lost their jobs in the effort—those who chose to strike were often terminated or replaced. The same remains true in many instances today.
As recently reported by Cannabis Business Times, Ben Telford, a keyholder at the Greenleaf Compassionate Care Center in Portsmouth, R.I., had his employment terminated in June, following the medical dispensary’s 21-1 vote to join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local Union 328. Telford said he helped lead an effort to negotiate a union contract.
“I’ve been a very loud voice for myself and for others on the team that worked there,” he said. “But the reason I was given the day I was terminated … was that my services were no longer required.” When Telford asked for further explanation, he was told none needed to be given to him at that time, he said.
The U.S. is one of a handful of countries where employment is predominantly at-will—meaning an employer can terminate an employee at any time for any reason, except for an illegal one. But wrongful termination laws typically vary by state, and those laws certainly cover state-regulated cannabis businesses, too.
Federal labor laws do, however, aim to provide workers greater protections and benefits today than in centuries past, including 40-hour work weeks, fair wages, pension plans and safe working conditions. Unions are largely to thank for that.
Going all the way back to 1866, the newly formed National Labor Union (NLU) asked Congress to pass a law mandating an eight-hour workday. While the effort failed, it sparked Americans to start supporting labor reform. When the U.S. government began tracking workers’ hours in 1890, the average workweek for full-time manufacturing employees was 100 hours.
Now, as the biggest cannabis companies continue to grow in a sector with increasing revenues, workers of those companies increasingly want to ensure they are rewarded in the industry where they’re creating those profits through their work: propagating, transplanting, feeding, watering, harvesting, drying, curing, trimming the plants that end up on store shelves across the country—just for starters. This compensation and reward structure, in line with growing profit margins, can take the shape of pay increases, ownership stakes or more inclusive workspaces.
Just this week, UFCW announced that a team of budtenders at Solar Therapeutics in Somerset, Mass., won their union election in a 10-4 vote to join the Local 328. Workers there formed the union with a focus on gaining full-time opportunities, improving benefits and securing “important” workplace protections, according to a UFCW press release.
“I am so proud of my co-workers for sticking together,” Solar budtender Erin Bosse said in the release. “We love our jobs and know that by forming our union, we will be able to build a better future for all of us here at Solar. Cannabis jobs can and should be careers and we know that when we stand together, we can make positive changes not only at our workplace but across the industry.”
Solar Therapeutics CEO Edward Dow did not respond to an Aug. 30 request for comment, following Solar workers’ signed letter to him and CFO Robert Keller calling on the company to respect their wishes to organize and to voluntarily recognize their union.
UFCW Local 328, which represents more than 11,000 workers in a range of industries throughout Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts, also represents employees at the Curaleaf medical dispensary in Hanover, Mass., Ocean State Cultivation Center in Warwick, R.I., and a Cresco Labs cultivation and processing facility in Fall River, Mass.
After Curaleaf Hanover’s union election results became official in April, a Curaleaf spokesperson told Cannabis Business Times, “While we’re disappointed with this outcome, because we believe team members are best served dealing directly with our management team, we respect the collective voice of our Hanover team members at the time and will seek to have a collaborative working relationship with the UFCW.”
The Curaleaf Hanover unionization effort sparked during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when workers there acknowledged they liked their jobs but simply wanted to have a “real voice” at work. And like other market trends we’re seeing across the commercial landscape (digital sales, delivery, automation—you name it), the cannabis industry is almost certain to see a greater percentage of its workforce engaging the unionization conversation.
-Tony Lange, Associate Editor
