New Yorkers could soon be buying weed from union budget tenderers. Here’s why
New York established the nation’s first cannabis market with labor peace agreements. This could affect the entire industry in the years to come.
In 2021, New York became the 17th state to legalize recreational marijuana — and the first to include a statutory clause mandating industrial peace agreements. That means when the state’s first licensed stores open in a few weeks, you might be buying your eighth from a union budtender.
Industrial Peace Agreements (LPAs) are laws that protect workers who organize in unions. No other constitutional state has dealt with the issue before New York. But after New York accepted its LPA clause, other states soon followed. New Jersey, where legal stores opened last April, and Connecticut, where they are expected to open in early 2023, both included LPAs in their legalization laws.
Although it’s just getting started – New York’s shops aren’t even open yet – many union organizers in the tri-state area are already hard at work. The future of labor rights and working conditions across the cannabis industry could be shaped in the tri-state Northeast market over the next few years.
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How will unions affect the New York cannabis market?
Nikki Kateman, Political Director of UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers) Local 338, represents cannabis workers in New York. “It’s very rare to be in a state where a brand new industry is emerging,” she told Leafly. “We must ensure that the jobs created are good jobs and not ‘Amazon jobs’ and bad jobs. It should be treated as a career and well rewarded.”
In New York’s burgeoning adult cannabis market, employers are required to sign an LPA to receive their operating license from the state. This agreement states that an employer will not attempt to disrupt workers who wish to organize and join a union.
“Not every cannabis workplace will automatically be unionized, but to get a cannabis company to sign an LPA means they agree to remain neutral and not actively participate in workers’ efforts to organize ,” said Ademola Oyefeso, UFCW International Vice President and Director of Legislative and Policy Action. “In return, the union pledges not to organize strikes or work stoppages.”
At a time when global giants like Starbucks and Amazon are fighting tooth and nail to defeat every single local union effort, that’s a really big deal.
“Wait a minute, weed traders have a union?”
Kateman told Leafly that many people find it hard to believe when they hear about cannabis workers’ unions. “‘You have a union?!'” is what Kateman says is what many people say when they hear about UFCW’s local work. The Local 338 branch of the UFCW brings together approximately 13,000 people who work in various industries throughout New York and northern New Jersey. Kateman said she expects to hire thousands of workers from the adult cannabis market over the next few years.
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UFCW also represents supermarket and retail workers, as well as the people who make the footballs used in NFL games and a growing number of college graduates. But the burgeoning legal weed sector — which employed 428,059 people statewide in 2022 — is one of the union’s fastest-growing constituencies.
How advocates made workers’ rights law in New York
The organizing of the UFCW in New York began even before weed was legalized. In the months leading up to the passage of New York’s Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA) in March 2021, Kateman and other union officials lobbied for the inclusion of industrial peace agreements in the landmark legalization law.
“New York is growing a relatively new industry, so it was critical that safeguards were put in place to ensure that the creation of tens of thousands of jobs — and thus support for New Yorkers who would be hired for those jobs in quality employment — would be high would be street careers. Industrial peace agreements give workers the space to decide that unions are the right choice for them and collectively negotiate improved wages, benefits and working conditions without employer interference.”
Nikki Kateman, UFCW Political Director
New York already has some of the highest unionization percentages in the medical cannabis industry. The focus for advocates and legislators has been to create a legal framework in which employers remain neutral towards unions and show respect for workers’ decisions to organize.
According to members, the UFCW is seeing results in this regard. At the 2022 Black CannaBiz conference in New Orleans, Norbert Pickett, UFCW member and owner of the popular Washington DC Cannabliss dispensary, challenged the common notion that unions and business owners must be at odds. In fact, the union is a valued ally for black business owners, Pickett told Leafly.
“We communicate, we solve problems together. In case anyone gets intimidated [unionization], there is nothing to fear,” he said. Pickett remains proud and confident, knowing that when former employees join other companies or start their own business, unions like the UFCW already set them up for success.
Pickett told Leafly that Cannabliss employees earn the highest wages of any cannabis dispensary in the District of Columbia because of the union’s work. You also get health benefits, a customized 401k program, vacation time, and opportunities for training, certification, and advancement.
Pickett said this helps Cannabliss stay competitive because employees are motivated to excel at their jobs. He also believes that together Cannabliss and UFCW are creating a pipeline towards entrepreneurship, which will benefit black representation in the space.
“We don’t want to keep employees as workers,” Pickett told Leafly. “We want them to go ahead and do their own thing, whether it’s in transportation, processing, branding, retail or whatever else.”
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