Cannabis Dispensers to Join Union

 Despite ongoing instability in the cannabis cultivation industry, workers at Sweet Flower cannabis dispensaries will begin contract negotiations after winning union recognition, according to a statement from United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770 last month. 

Sweet Flower has four Los Angeles-area dispensaries located in Studio City, West Hollywood, downtown Los Angeles and Westwood, with plans for additional storefronts to open next year. About 70 employees at the existing locations have won union recognition, according to a statement from UFCW 770.

Sweet Flower also entered into a Labor Peace Agreement that will provide a path for future employees at additional locations to join the union if they choose.

“We are very pleased to welcome Sweet Flower workers into our union,” Local 770 President John Grant said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to build a partnership with the company that will ensure Sweet Flower and its employees grow and thrive together.”

Sweet Flower is one of several California cannabis companies unionized with UFCW, including San Francisco’s STIIIZY-Mission, Long-Beach based Catalyst Cannabis Co. and Perfect Union in Lompoc. UFCW is the nation’s largest cannabis industry union, representing more than 10,000 workers. 

Union organizing among dispensaries and cannabis cultivators has increased during the pandemic, with workers throughout California, as well as in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania ratifying contracts over the last two years. The announcement of local shops unionizing comes shortly after leaders in the cannabis industry recently warned Gov. Gavin Newsom that the state’s legal marijuana industry is on the verge of collapse due to high tax rates.

In an open letter sent Dec. 17, more than two dozen executives, industry leaders and policy advocates stated that Proposition 64, the voter-approved measure to create a legal marijuana market in California, has caused a critical regulatory threat to the industry. 

“It is critical to recognize that an unwillingness to effectively legislate, implement and oversee a functional regulated cannabis industry has brought us to our knees. The California cannabis system is a nation-wide mockery; a public policy lesson in what not to do,” the letter read. “Despite decades of persecution by the government, we have been willing and adaptable partners in the struggle to regulate cannabis. We have asked tirelessly for change, with countless appeals to lawmakers that have gone unheard. We have collectively reached a point of intolerable tension, and we will no longer support a system that perpetuates a failed and regressive War on Drugs.”

After receiving the letter, Newsom spokesperson Erin Mellon said in a statement that the governor supports cannabis tax reform and recognizes the system needs change, while expanding enforcement against illegal sales and production. No actions have been proposed yet.

“Without meaningful change, many, if not most licensed cannabis companies, will face a desperate choice: pay exorbitant taxes into a system designed for failure or pay employees so they can feed their families,” the open letter continued. “None of us want to make this choice.”