Abstract
As cannabis legalization sweeps the country, unionization of the industry is quickly following. New York’s 2014 Compassionate Care Act1 (CCA) legalized medical marijuana for therapeutic use. Since then, all ten medical cannabis companies in New York have been unionized, and eight (at the time of writing) have contracts at cultivation sites and/or retail dispensaries, represented by Local 338 of the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU)/United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW). Unionization efforts in New York’s medical cannabis industry offer a prelude to union organizing in the state’s new adult-use sector, which is expected to be much larger.