Sean Shannon, lead organizer with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 655 (left), and former budtender-turned-organizer Danny Foster visited several marijuana dispensaries in eastern Missouri in November to talk to employees about unionizing. | Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent
ST. LOUIS—The first day was a breeze.
While Missouri cannabis dispensary workers see progress, marijuana manufacturing employees say they are stuck in a ‘gray area,’ unable to unionize because they may be considered agricultural workers.
Or so Sean Shannon and Danny Foster found out when they walked into several marijuana dispensaries around Missouri with their matching “Union For Cannabis Workers” shirts and talked to employees about the possibility of unionizing.
“The first day, there were 57 stops amongst the teams,” said Shannon, lead organizer for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 655. “Reception was out-of-this-world positive. Workers were so excited.”
Shannon had gathered together a dozen organizers to help Local 655 visit every one of the approximate 100 dispensaries on the eastern half of Missouri—twice.
Stirring up the excitement was the union’s big win of the recent settlement, where 10 Shangri-La South dispensary workers in Columbia received a collective $145,000 after being fired following a March union