Service + Solidarity Spotlight: UFCW Celebrates 4/20 with Organizing Wins

Working people across the United States have stepped up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our regular Service + Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

Wednesday was 4/20, the informal holiday for celebrating all things cannabis. And for some new members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), it was also a day to celebrate their rights as union members in America’s growing cannabis industry. The union continued its organizing winning streak, adding new members in New Jersey, Missouri and Michigan.

Workers (pictured above with New Jersey State AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech [IUOE]) at a cannabis store in Deptford, New Jersey, overwhelmingly voted to form a union with UFCW Local 360. Also on Monday, workers at a recreational cannabis facility in Battle Creek became the first such group to gain union representation in western Michigan by becoming members of UFCW Local 951. And earlier this month, workers at a medical cannabis dispensary in St. Louis voted to form the first such union in the state with UFCW Local 655.