Taking Initiative

UFCW Local 5 and Oaksterdam join forces to protect workers—and promote the movement

By Jasen T. Davis

When employees at Oaksterdam University decided to unionize, they contacted the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 5. Richard Lee, founder of Oaksterdam University and proponent of last year’s Proposition 19, encouraged his workers to join, a radical departure from the usual business practices of other companies like Walmart and Borders.

The unionization of Oaksterdam workers not only gave the legalization movement new traction, it also helped further legitimize the industry to mainstream voters. With the support of respected organizations like UFCW Local 5, collective workers, growers and owners have new political support in the movement to legalize cannabis and hemp in the United States of America.

CULTURE spoke with Dan Rush, director of Local 5’s Medical Cannabis and Hemp Division and an industry representative.

When did Oaksterdam employees first contact UFCW Local 5?

I research a lot of statewide ballot matters to enhance our members’ positions. In Thanksgiving of 2009, I was taking my time off searching the Internet for new candidates and I kept finding cannabis initiatives.

I read one, Proposition 19, [and] I noticed that the initiative talked about jobs and helping the economy. I researched cannabis and saw it as an agricultural, retail, food processing and textiles union. I realized this new industry contained our union’s core industries so I called them up about union support for their initiatives.

I contacted Richard Lee, the proponent of Proposition 19, and while we were talking about how the union supported the initiative, he asked me to speak to his workers about unionizing his dispensaries in Oakland. I agreed to speak to anyone who was interested in joining the union.

Why has UFCW Local 5 been so helpful in the legalization movement?

UFCW understands the emerging medical cannabis and hemp industries as the last American-made, middle-class frontier. Since it involves our core industries, we have decided to accept the responsibility for regulating and stabilizing these core industries.

Has the cannabis and hemp industry improved, thanks to union support?

I’ve seen the industry improve quite a bit. It’s been my experience that the cannabis and hemp industry and many elected officials are embracing the union a lot more.

Why don’t more workers unionize like the people at Oaksterdam University?

I think that in the United States, conservative economic forces have successfully exploited workers to the point that they don’t realize joining a union is a possibility. Some workers don’t even think they should have employer-provided health care or other provisions. Unions have also been demonized by the local businesses.

How is UFCW Local 5 taking a greater stance in the legalization effort?

We’re establishing components of employment, environmental standards, scientific standards, preparation standards, community protections and, obviously, worker protections. All of these add up to safe patient access and harmony with the communities that our members work in . . . All workers in the cannabis industry deserve the same protections. The union intends to create a sensible playing field for everybody, from the communities to the workers to the business owners.

UNION YES!

UFCW Local 5 also supports the other side of the cannabis legalization movement: hemp. When state Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) first proposed SB 676, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act, earlier this year, the union endorsed the bill. SB 676 would create an 8-year pilot program to allow industrial hemp farming in Kern, Kings, Imperial, San Joaquin and Yolo counties. “UFCW enthusiastically supports SB 676 because we see it as a jobs and revenue generator at a time when they are sorely needed in California,” Local 5’s Dan Rush said earlier this month. Jack Herer would be proud.