Employees at Pennsylvania cannabis company CannTech voted to ratify a union contract with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) Local 1776.
A union news release issued Wednesday did not specify the number of CannTech employees covered by the new contract but said the pact affects workers at the company’s medical marijuana facility in Warrendale, Pennsylvania.
The contract also covers workers at a CannTech medical marijuana dispensary that is already open as well as workers at four other Pennsylvania MMJ dispensaries that the company is preparing to open, UFCW Local 1776 told Marijuana Business Daily.
“The three-year agreement includes industry leading retirement benefits, wages and LGBTQ non-discrimination language,” the UFCW noted in the release.
“I’m glad that CannTech management respects worker’s rights to organize and has risen to the occasion, signing this outstanding agreement and raising standards for cannabis workers in Pennsylvania,” UFCW Local 1776 President Wendell Young IV said in a statement.
In late November, multistate operator Ayr Strategies, which has offices in New York and Toronto, announced a $57 million deal to buy CannTech’s Pennsylvania operations.
The new union contract represents the UFCW’s latest successful unionization drive at U.S. marijuana firms.
Workers at Washington DC dispensary DC Holistic Wellness signed a UFCW contract in October, as did workers at Ocean State Cultivation Center in Warwick, Rhode Island.
The UFCW also represents workers at Massachusetts cannabis company New England Treatment Access and signed a contract in Pennsylvania with MSO Vireo Health in 2019.
