As we already know, the medical marijuana industry continues to thrive in Oakland despite the failure of the legalization ballot, Prop 19.
Already this July, the Oakland City Council approved the application of four permitted production facilities as outlined in our own blog this Summer, Oakland Considering Four Large-scale Cannabis Farms and Adding Two Dispensaries. With expansion like that on the horizon and the constant flow of patients to local dispensaries, some medical cannabis industry workers and cultivators have begun thinking about unionization.
This month, about 40 employees of Marjyn Investments LLC – a company that contracts with medical marijuana patients to grow their plants – joined Teamsters Local 70 in Oakland, becoming the nation’s first group of unionized marijuana growers. Earlier this year, about 100 dispensary employees joined UFCW Local 5, a move that ensures their jobs include healthcare, vacation and sick leave, pensions and daycare for single parents. This was a move that dispensary operators and legalization proponents applauded as bringing new legitimacy to their industry.
“This is a good day for Oakland,” Rebecca Kaplan, a member of the Oakland City Council, told reporters. “Having the workers in a union adds another check and balance as this movement grows.”
According to Dan Rush, special operations director for UFCW Local 5, membership among medical marijuana workers continues to grow, with the current Local 5 count at 150. “I anticipate the industry is going to be union, wall-to-wall,” Rush said.
Derek Peterson said he hopes to create jobs in Oakland even though Prop. 19 didn’t pass. His company, Gropech, is assembling an application for one of the four highly coveted cultivation permits the City Council approved this summer. If given the green light to create its facility, Gropech would employ about 120 full-time workers and produce meticulously cultivated marijuana.
“Oakland is going to be the mecca of our cannabis industry,” Rush said. And he could be right, which would be good news for the unions.
