Labor union sets its sights on organizing pot workers

Calling current standards threadbare, one of the largest labor unions in the country is pushing California regulators to better protect marijuana workers in the wake of legalization by requiring health and safety training.

Since Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting wrote about women trimmers sexually abused in the state’s top marijuana-growing regions, workers have begun emerging from the shadows of California’s secretive marijuana industry. Complaints of sexual harassment and sexual assault. Cash-only payments. No pay at all.

The United Food and Commercial Workers was surprised.

“Prior to your article – it’s been mostly from the industry – it was kumbaya, everything’s hunky-dory, people are going to make a lot of money, everyone loves working in cultivation, everything’s so nice and so free,” said Sam Rodriguez, director of legislative affairs for the union’s Western States Council. “It was like someone came and lifted the hood of a BMW and found it has the motor of a Chevrolet and it doesn’t work.”

Rodriguez said Reveal’s investigation prompted the union – which helped pass last year’s medical marijuana laws and get Proposition 64 on this month’s ballot – to realize that labor practices in the industry were not what they seemed.

“We have a real problem here … that is devastating to workers,” Rodriguez said. “It’s obvious to us, given the story, that this is the tip of the iceberg.”

The move signals the union’s intent to organize marijuana workers in what will be the nation’s largest marketplace for legal pot. The union was the first to organize marijuana workers in California beginning in 2010, and now has about 1,200 card-carrying members who work at dispensaries in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. The union also plans to support legislation to require training in the next session.

For California’s secretive marijuana growing industry, the union’s public push is just one sign that times are changing.

Under the new law, regulators will begin issuing licenses to growers in 2018. Protections afforded all workers in the state will apply, but little in California’s new marijuana law addresses the unique working conditions of the bud trimmers – known as trimmigrants – and other pot workers.

The Division of Occupational Safety and Health does have the option of creating regulations specifically for the marijuana industry. To do so, they are required to collect public input – which the union was happy to provide.

In memos emailed to the Division of Occupational Safety and Health and the Department of Consumer Affairs – the agency responsible for issuing licenses – Rodriguez advocated for creating a robust training program for workers, requiring that one employee of each grower be certified in health and safety standards, and compelling growers to keep and supply specific data on whom they hire, how much they’re paid and whether they’re provided with health insurance and sick days.

Workers are “suffering from a lack of regulations and oversight,” Rodriguez wrote in one of the memos. “Currently, standards and protections for workers specific to marijuana cultivation and production are threadbare.”

Rodriguez said that’s a problem in an industry that remains largely ignorant of labor standards. Growers seem unaware of the requirements, he said, and workers seem hesitant to come forward and identify themselves as marijuana workers, not to mention formally report abuses.

Lori Ajax, chief of the state’s Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulation, declined to discuss specifics of the memo but said she was open to the union’s suggestions.

“We’re taking everything into consideration as we move forward,” she wrote in an email to Reveal. “The Bureau continues to assess the initiative and we’re working hard to develop a robust regulatory system that protects the consumer, the environment and the public.”

Time is short. The Division of Occupational Safety and Health will accept public input until Nov. 30, and is required to make recommendations to the Standards Board by July 1, 2017. The agency also plans to discuss concerns about violence in the marijuana industry next year in a new advisory committee on workplace violence.

Shoshana Walter can be reached at swalter@revealnews.org. Follow her on Twitter: @shoeshine.