Medical Marijuana Dispensary Workers Plan to Unionize
Medical marijuana dispensary workers announced plans Thursday to organize a union with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 770 Union. As the nation's largest retail worker organization, UFCW represents grocery and food workers, pharmacists, and health care workers.
So far, the organization's local branch has reportedly unionized more than 100 workers at Los Angeles-area medical marijuana dispensaries.
Mike Shimpock, a UFCW Local 770 spokesman, told Patch.com that the union and the dispensaries already started bargaining on more labor contracts.
President of UFCW Local 770, Rick Icaza, said in a statement Wednesday, "This is the next step in professionalizing and stabilizing this new sector of the health care industry."
Dispensary workers usually receive a salary between twelve to seventeen-dollars an hour without yearly health care benefits.
Currently, the City Council is discussing a measure in the next month that, if enacted, would ban all medical marijuana shops in Los Angeles.
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