One for the Teamsters

Good old union-label marijuana.

That notion may seem a bit fantastic. When union members and marijuana come up in the same sentence it's usually embarrassing to the union. But change is in the air along with the marijuana smoke. As the business of medical marijuana burgeons across the country — last week Delaware became the 16th state to legalize medical marijuana — and employs more people, the question of union organizing was bound to be called. Last week, Teamsters Local Council 43 announced that it had answered the call and organized 23 workers at three locations of Michigan's Blue Water Compassion Center through a card check process.

Card check is a fairly uncontentious organizing process in which workers sign cards indicating their union support rather than the traditional election. Employers agree to recognize a union as the representative if more than 50 percent of workers sign cards. At Blue Water, 22 of 23 workers signed cards in support of Teamster representation. They will join the 1.4-million-strong Teamsters union as members of Local 1038.

"They just feel that they would have more clout belonging to the Teamsters union," said Marian Novak, an organizer for Teamsters Joint Council 43. "As far as issues: just job security. That's what everyone is worried about these days."

These days union job security tends to mean seniority rules when it comes to layoffs and due process when it comes to firing workers.

The idea of union marijuana workers sounds like the kind of thing that could only happen in California. Not surprisingly, it has happened there. The Teamsters already represent a handful of marijuana workers in Oakland and the United Food and Commercial Workers union represents some too. There has been something of a gentleman's agreement there wherein Teamsters organize among production workers and UFCW works with retail workers.

Maybe their theme could be "Henry" the old Riders of the Purple Sage song about a fellow driving a truckload of marijuana in from Acapulco. But these new California Teamsters aren't truck drivers. They're growers, trimmers and cloners. Cloning is the process whereby a branch cut from a plant grows roots and makes a genetically identical copy of the original plant. Trimmers cut the marijuana leaf from around the THC-rich bud that provides the most powerful marijuana effects.

Blue Water's three locations are in Kimball, Lexington Heights and Richville in Michigan's thumb area. It's not clear exactly what kinds of jobs workers at Blue Water do, but the Teamsters press release said that they provide "support" for their customers. When I called the Kimball location, the person who answered the telephone declined an interview, but he did say that "we understand" the wide impact that organizing could have in the marijuana industry. "The Teamsters have always been into wide-scale organizing, willing to go across jurisdictional lines," says John Beck, director of Labor Education at Michigan State University. "When they see opportunity to organize, they organize. All unions now have to be more broad-based to survive, and the Teamsters were there before anybody else was willing to be there."

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