Alexis Springer tried organizing a union at a Muskegon marijuana shop last October.
She researched the process, found a labor union and gathered support from 12 coworkers who wanted higher wages and better safety practices. But then Springer, 29, says her hours were cut – down to zero for 14 days – until she got a call from management in December that they were “ending the exchange of services.” She was fired.
“I expected a booming industry where there were no shortages of opportunities for workers to get involved and also rise up in the ranks,” Springer said. “But it was pretty much like any other conglomerate.”
Unions are gaining traction at Michigan dispensaries, bringing legitimacy to an industry that still isn’t federally recognized. Since March 2022, several Michigan dispensaries have formed unions with the United Food & Commercial Workers, which has more than 1,000 locals in the U.S. and Canada. But some employees have faced resistance to organizing.
In early June, Springer filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board and the Michigan Employment Relations Commission after she lost her job at Cloud Cannabis in Muskegon. She claims the store retaliated against her for trying to form a union.
The complaints say five other workers who were “union sympathizers” have also lost their jobs since December. Cloud Cannabis did not respond to a request for comment.
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Other dispensaries have also faced setbacks.
Workers at a Lume Cannabis store in Monroe successfully unionized last year, but other Lume workers are reportedly struggling to negotiate with the company – one of the biggest weed producers in Michigan.
Filings with the National Labor Relations Board show workers at additional companies have tried and failed. In January, for example, Liberty Cannabis in Madison Heights lost an election with a 6 to 8 vote.
“If this extremely lucrative and profitable industry can do this to their workers, then where can I go where they don’t do that?” Springer said.
The movement to unionize seems to be mirroring the industry’s gains and setbacks.
Recreational marijuana has bloomed into a $2 billion behemoth since the first Michigan recreational store opened in December 2019. But cracks are forming as businesses struggle with an oversupply of weed and plummeting prices. This has pushed some businesses into a debt safety net known as receivership, a court-ordered agreement for creditors to recover defaulted funds.
From 2019 to present, eight licensees have entered a receivership, according to the Cannabis Regulatory Agency.
The industry’s financial instability and its interest in unionization go “hand-in-hand,” said John Cakmakci, president of United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 951.
With more than 35,000 cannabis jobs, Michigan is second in the nation behind California’s 85,000 jobs. So far, only a handful of retail employees have been able to organize with United Food & Commercial Workers labor union. Growers and processors have not entered the union discussion.
Cannabis workers have been contacting the labor union since the inception of Michigan’s industry, Cakmakci said. The calls spiked after the state legalized recreational use in 2018. Workers cited complaints varying from payment in marijuana to sexual harassment.
At times, the industry felt like “the wild west,” Cakmakci said.
Some of the “sleazy” behavior has been stymied by competition and regulation, according to Cakmakci, but the union is still regularly fielding complaints from workers.
“I think some of these owners are backing off, or are selling out, there’s a little less of that kind of predatory behavior from some of these owners. I literally mean, little. There’s been some improvement there, nothing much,” Cakmakci said.
Momentum for unions stall when retail stores are purchased or swallowed by larger companies before organization takes hold, Cakmakci said. There’s been a pattern of employees leaving the store, or the industry, before they ever reach a union vote.
“We drop our contracts, and they’ll look at it, say ‘this is awesome,’ but getting them from point A to point B has been a real fight,” Cakmakci said.
Cakmakci also recognizes that the number of calls from workers were outstripping union resources as they were focused on repealing Right to Work legislation, which secured the governor’s signature this year. He expects to make gains in the cannabis industry now that the union can re-prioritize its efforts, he said.
Despite momentum for labor organizing at Starbucks, Amazon and Apple, national union membership hit a historic low of 10.1% last year, federal data shows. That’s half the membership rate from 40 years ago.
Michigan’s union membership, historically above the U.S. rate, bumped up to 14%.
Much like regulation, unionization further legitimizes the cannabis industry, Heritage Provision CEO Willie McKenzie said.
After Heritage’s Manistee store, Authentic 231, became the first in the state to unionize, the other two locations in East Tawas and Stanton followed suit. Now about 30 of the 80 retail employees are unionized.
McKenzie initiated contact with the United Food & Commercial Workers when he heard other cannabis retailers were considering unionizing. Having experience with cannabis unions in his home state of California, McKenzie said he wanted to work with, rather than fight against, a union effort at his three stores. Partnering on the contract gave McKenzie more of a voice and allowed him to make suggestions specific to the cannabis industry, he said.
“The unions are going to have a place in the cannabis industry because there’s a lot of evolving that the industry as a whole has to do to professionalize and to kind of rise to the occasion of becoming a big industry in the United States,” he said.
The union hasn’t changed much for the economics of the company, McKenzie said. Heritage’s starting salary of $15 an hour was already in line with the union contract, as were health benefits, he said.
The most appealing part of unionization for McKenzie was tamping down the industry’s high turnover and elevating training to make cannabis a career path. The food and commercial workers union is looking to start an apprenticeship in the industry for similar reasons.
“This industry is emerging from the shadows,” McKenzie said. “As a whole, [the industry] doesn’t necessarily have a good track record of treating employees very well. Which is one of the reasons that it’s important to me to have a really good culture in our business.”
A lucrative, up-and-coming industry is what drew in Springer, who worked for Cloud Cannabis for a year and half before her termination. The alleged union busting efforts have soured her experience in the industry. Six months later, Springer has two part-time jobs to cover her bills.
“Until we better regulate the labor situation in the cannabis industry, I’m not participating in it,” Springer said.
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