Alleged fake marijuana unions are expanding across United States

Alleged fake marijuana unions are expanding foothold across United States

There’s something unique about Ascend Cannabis’ adult-use marijuana store in Montclair, New Jersey, an affluent New York City suburb.

And it underscores a “significant problem” in the nation’s cannabis industry that labor unions say is thwarting worker rights – and so far eluding otherwise strict regulations governing the marijuana industry.

Two competing labor organizations have signed up workers at the Ascend dispensary, which does business under the umbrella of Ascend Wellness Holdings, a New York-based multistate operator.

The United Food and Commercial Workers has organized the employees that oversee the “shift leads,” who supervise day-to-day retail operations, at Ascend Montclair, Hugh Giordano, organizing director for UFCW Local 152, told MJBizDaily.

But the UFCW – which claims to have organized “tens of thousands” of cannabis retail employees, delivery drivers and growers and trimmers nationwide – was a latecomer.

An outfit called the Cannabis Engineers Extractors and Distributors (CEED), with a cheeky local unit number of 420, arrived at Ascend first and organized the budtenders in early 2022.

Read the rest of the story here at MJ Biz