UNIONS AND MARIJUANA A PERFECT MATCH

The labor unions almost bankrupted the auto industry and have had a long history of law breaking. That’s why the UFCW has no trouble moving in on an industry that operates in violation of federal laws.

SHRINKING U.S. LABOR UNIONS SEE RELIEF IN MARIJUANA INDUSTRY
By Samuel P. Jacobs and Alex Dobuzinskis

Reuters
February 6, 2013

WASHINGTON / LOS ANGELES -- The medical marijuana shop next to a tattoo parlor on a busy street in Los Angeles looks much like hundreds of other pot dispensaries that dot the city.

Except for one thing: On the glass door - under a green cross signaling that cannabis can be bought there for medical purposes - is a sticker for the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW), the nation's largest retail union.

The dispensary, the Venice Beach Care Center, is one of three medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles that are staffed by dues-paying union members. Another 49 in the city plan to enter into labor agreements with the UFCW this year, the union says.

Together, the dispensaries are a symbol of the growing bond between the nascent medical marijuana industry and struggling labor unions.

During the last few years, unions, led by the UFCW, have played an increasingly significant role in campaigns to allow medical marijuana, now legal in California, 17 other states and Washington, D.C.

In the November elections, UFCW operatives also helped get-out-the-vote efforts in Colorado, where voters approved a measure that made possession of one ounce (28.3 grams) or less of the drug legal for anyone 21 and older. Washington state approved a similar measure and both states require regulation of marijuana growers, processors and retailers.

Union officials acknowledge that their support stems partly from the idea that the marijuana industry could create hundreds of thousands of members at a time when overall union membership is shrinking.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last month that union members - who accounted for 11.8 percent of the workforce in 2011 - now make up about 11.3 percent of all American workers, the lowest percentage in nearly a century.

Retail unions such as the UFCW are fighting the rise of part-time workers and a steady drop in real wages over the last two generations. Organized labor also has been under pressure from Republican governors such as Wisconsin's Scott Walker, who led an effort to curb collective bargaining rights for public workers in that state.

Union officials say there are now 3,000 UFCW members who work in the cannabis industry, a tiny fraction of the union's 1.3 million members.

Industry advocates acknowledge that the legal marijuana industry's potential to produce jobs is difficult to project. One reason: uncertainty over how the U.S. government will deal with an industry whose product is illegal under federal law but increasingly accepted by state laws.

Since Colorado and Washington state voted to legalize marijuana on November 6, President Barack Obama has said his administration will not pursue recreational pot users in those states.

However, the president has not said whether the U.S. government will allow widespread sales of the drug that would be legal under some state laws but not federal law.