This week, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) took up its second case of a complaint filed against a medical marijuana dispensary.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which has unionized MMJ workers in six states and Washington DC so far, lodged the complaint with the NLRB after the Compassionate Care Foundation in New Jersey allegedly engaged in “anti-labor” practices. The union claims the dispensary retaliated against workers who expressed an interest in unionizing by cutting hours and wages, according to The Los Angeles Times.
The complaint was first filed in January, and it’s not clear yet whether the NLRB will make its ruling public. The agency first intervened in the cannabis industry in 2014, when workers at a Maine dispensary alleged their labor rights had been violated.
But with the rapidly growing marijuana industry having union representation for thousands of workers so far, and with New York’s MMJ law requiring that all of its eventual 20 dispensaries be union shops, this likely won’t be the last time the cannabis industry sees a union-related dispute.
