Next battleground for unions: Marijuana
Surprisingly, some business owners welcome organizing efforts by employees.
The multibillion-dollar marijuana industry has become a hotbed of union organizing.
According to Reuters, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, the largest retail union, has been bombarded with requests from dispensary workers to join since the election. "I can't keep up," Dan Rush, who heads the union's cannabis division, tells the news service.
The stakes couldn't be higher. As CNBC recently pointed out, estimates of the size of the burgeoning marijuana industry range from $10 billion to $120 billion.
The pro-marijuana group NORML calls pot the third-most-popular recreational drug in the U.S., ranking behind alcohol and tobacco. Nearly 100 million people have admitted to partaking. Not surprisingly, union organizers are interested in the industry, which according to one estimate could employ 100,000 people in California alone.
The union's cannabis unit says it uses traditional organizing tactics to bring fair wages and benefits to an industry that "has been operating in the shadows."
Voters in Colorado and Washington decided last year to end all criminal and civil penalties for cannabis use by adults. Eighteen states since 1996 have permitted the medically authorized use of marijuana.
Surprisingly, some dispensary operators are backing the unionization efforts because they see competitors breaking labor laws and ducking taxes, according to Reuters. But other dispensary owners, like those in many other industries, remain leery of unions.
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Hemp is grown commercially in Canada for it's industrial uses, and is a very hardy crop that will grow in conditions others will not, not to mention is quite profitable even when not used in a recreational context. Medicinal uses have great potential as it has been found useful against many afflictions including but not limited to asthma, IBD, migraine, Parkinson's, epilepsy, and BTW has no evidence as a contributing factor to lung cancer. Considering how many Physicians who prescribe MJ bound by the Hippocratic oath in decriminalized states, it must not be too terrible when providers stand to profit much more prescribing "popular" manufactured drugs that pay kickbacks. No one has Ever died from an OD either, and it is not physically addictive.
Unions were good for the workers in 1920-1940.
Today, they are useless, parasites.
A Tool for politicians to pull out of their bag of tricks election day.
no one should get auto raises, increases in pensions , life long medical, all the freebies on taxpayers dime and NEVER have it tied to performance.
The Teachers union are the worst too.
They SUCK and are USELESS
America should be a right to work country !
F --- the Unions and their thugs
Why do we constantly look to government for an okay to live our lives - then the heavy hand of unions - then state and local governments - when all you have to do is grow a little for private use. Wouldn't someone with a brain do that? Embracing responsible personal liberty - what a bizarre concept.
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