Employees at a Chicago cannabis retailer voted to join the Teamsters Local 777, the first such move in Illinois by workers at a marijuana business, the union noted in a news release.
Workers at Modern Cannabis in the River North neighborhood of Chicago voted “overwhelmingly” to join the union, according to the release, though a vote tally was not revealed.
“As more and more states legalize recreational cannabis and the industry expands exponentially, workers are realizing that the Teamsters are the best union to ensure that the people who make these businesses succeed aren’t left out of the prosperity associated with this growth,” Jim Glimco, the president of Local 777, said in the release.
The Teamsters are likely still far behind the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union in organizing cannabis industry workers, however.
The UFCW has been collecting members in the marijuana space for years and has held elections at multiple businesses in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and in other states.
According to one UFCW official in California, the union has roughly 2,000 marijuana industry members in that state alone.
