The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is celebrating a pair of wins in April in its drive to unionize the New Jersey cannabis industry.
Teamsters Local 469, based in Hazlet, said workers at a dispensary in Mays Landing just voted to join. The Cannabist Co. owns the dispensary, which is located along Black Horse Pike.
The Cannabist, formerly Columbia Care, also has dispensaries on Clements Bridge Road in West Deptford Township and along North Delsea Drive in Vineland. This Massachusetts-based company also has a cultivation and manufacturing facility along North West Boulevard in Vineland.
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New Jersey consumers are showing increased demand for recreational cannabis products.
Additionally, workers at a manufacturing facility owned by the California-based company Garden Society in Passaic just ratified their first contract. The 40-member work force voted to join the Teamsters in late 2024, making them first Teamsters-represented cannabis site in New Jersey.
Teamsters set out about three years ago to unionize the cannabis industries. It has recorded more than 30 collective bargaining agreements among workforces in California, Illinois, Ohio, Maryland, Massachusetts and Michigan.
“This is inherently a core industry for our union,” union spokesman Matt McQuaid said this week. “If you look at most of the core segments of the cannabis supply chain — agriculture, manufacturing, logistics, and retail — these are all jobs where the Teamsters have represented workers for decades.”
McQuaid said that the cannabis industry employs approximately 500,000 people and that the number is increasing.
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Joe Smith is a N.E. Philly native transplanted to South Jersey 36 years ago, keeping an eye now on government in South Jersey. He is a former editor and current senior staff writer for The Daily Journal in Vineland, Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, and the Burlington County Times.
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This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: The Black Horse Pike dispensary is owned by the Cannabist Co.
