Recreational cannabis use and possession was legalized in Oregon back in July 2016, though that’s not to say the state industry’s growth and embrace of the plant hasn’t come with its share of strife. Just this week, a group of workers at a cannabis grow operation in Gresham walked off the job Monday.
The workers are seeking union representation by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Union Local 555 and demanding recognition and bargaining from the grow’s parent company, Oregon-based CBN Holdings, according to a Willamette Week report.
CBN Holdings is the parent company for six Oregon cannabis businesses, including five dispensaries and the Gresham grow, according to primary shareholder and founder Tyler Walker. Close to 25 workers walked off the job Monday morning, according to the union.
Miles Eshaia, a spokesperson for the union, told WW that workers delivered a demand letter Monday morning, but he said the manager refused to accept it.
“We have been in the process of organizing for almost two months,” Eshaia said.
Justin Brown also spoke with OPB, saying he was one of four workers who was fired after initiating the process to form a union.
“The timing of it was very suspicious,” Brown said. “It was after we had signed union cards, it was after we had been talking about it. We did have some co-workers talk with at least one of our managers about it.”
CBN Holdings has a different perspective, with one of its owners, Matt Hurd, disputing the narrative of the union. He said only six employees walked out of the 30 total employees at the cultivation site.
“This morning’s walkout, by a small group of six employees, was the first that any union has been mentioned and Cannabis Nation was completely unaware of any efforts to unionize,” Hurt told WW. “The union has not filed a petition or opened a line of communication with CBN at all. We have not been informed on what their demands are.”
Hurd gave a similar statement to OPB, adding, “The allegation that the company terminated employees due to union efforts is completely false.”
He added that the UFCW had not contacted national authorities to form a union, though Brown said he and the other former employees had reached out to the UFCW in January. He said that workers’ primary concern is safety, and though the company has addressed some safety concerns, like training in the handling of pesticides, other concerns still remain.
Brown said, for example, the company has not conducted regular fire drills, despite its use of electricity and tight working conditions creating a potential fire hazard.
“From my first week on the job, people would come up to me and give me warnings ‘hey look out for this’ and ‘keep this in mind’—It’s on everyone’s mind,” Brown said, adding that workers’ anxiety about these hazards likely makes them less efficient on the job.
Hurd said in his statement to OPB that Cannabis Nation takes safety “very seriously” and that employees at the grow undergo extensive and ongoing training to ensure workplace safety.
“If corrections are necessary, we are prompt and thorough with our response and we continue to have an open-door policy for employee complaints.”
Walker told WW that the grow will continue to operate despite the strike.
“It’s open and running and it will continue to do so,” Walker says. “We go in and actually do a lot of the production ourselves if need be. We try to give employment opportunities, and that doesn’t always work out. People see things different as an employee as an employer.”
The union said that striking workers include assistant growers, maintenance staff at the grow and people working in post-production.
UFCW Local 55 represents about 29,000 workers in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Wyoming, many of them grocery workers. Eshaia said that the union does not currently represent any cannabis grow workers, while it does represent a number of budtenders selling cannabis products at dispensaries.
“Dispensary workers can actually petition to get union recognition. But the growers themselves fall under agriculture, and agriculture doesn’t have an agency assigned to them to protect them,” Eshaia said. ”Measure 91 legalized marijuana, but workers at grow operations are left in legal limbo.”
Union officials told OPB they want workers at CBN Holdings to be allowed to form a union. While they wait, they’re calling on dispensaries and cannabis consumers to boycott CBN products, which are regularly marketed under the brand Cannabis Nation.
