Labor
Big Labor Wants Tens Of Thousands Of California Pot Workers Paying Union Dues
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Labor unions are vying for new, dues-paying members from California’s growing cannabis industry as a state law legalizing recreational pot is only days away from taking full effect.
After California residents passed Proposition 64 in 2016, the Golden State became the largest market in the U.S. for recreational marijuana and boosted the already growing weed industry. Proposition 64 will be fully implemented in a matter of days at the start of 2018, according to the Los Angeles Times.
More than year since Proposition 64 passed, unions such as United Farm Workers (UFW) and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) are fighting to capture union dues from the thousands of freelance marijuana workers across California, the Associated Press reports.
“We would hope they respect our jurisdiction,” UFCW spokesman Jeff Ferro told the AP.
UFW is trying to lure in potential members by pitching their union logo as a potential marketing tool to be placed on products.
“If you’re a cannabis worker, the UFW wants to talk with you,” national vice president Armando Elenes said.
The state market for marijuana is already as valuable as $20 billion and includes tens of thousands of workers, a rich prize for unions competing to be the emerging industry’s membership leader.
If the labor movement can overcome its infighting, it must also convince marijuana industry officials and lawmakers that unionizing its employees will not hurt business. Unions are pushing for a three-tiered system involving a middleman between growers and retailers. The middleman would be responsible for collecting taxes and transporting the product so that pot would be easier to track and account for, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Lawmakers and businesses, however, see the added step as burden on the free-market system that they envisioned for California’s marijuana market.
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