Business
Canadian cannabis company SNDL intimidated union-curious staff, tribunal rules
Canadian cannabis grower SNDL interfered with an off-site union informational meeting for employees working at a cultivation facility and must remedy that interference by offering workers paid, mandatory meetings with the union going forward, a provincial labor tribunal has ruled.
As organized labor continues making inroads into the North American cannabis industry, the case shows how attempts to infringe on employees’ labor rights can backfire.
The ruling from the Alberta Labour Relations Board (ALRB) regarding the complaint by Teamsters Local 987 was issued Jan. 25, finding a breach of provincial labor law by SNDL after company managers “sought by intimidation or threat to compel employees to refrain from becoming union members.”
“We’re happy with the decision. We’re disappointed that it had to come to this,” Preston Quintin, a business agent and organizer with Teamsters Local 987, told MJBizDaily.
“Obviously, we’d prefer if the employer doesn’t interfere in an organizing campaign or at organizing meetings.”
MJBizDaily received no response to a request for comment from Calgary, Alberta-based SNDL, formerly Sundial Growers, whose shares trade as SNDL on the Nasdaq exchange.
The case involved a July 2022 Teamsters informational meeting for SNDL employees that was held at a public library in the Alberta town of Olds.
Two managers from SNDL’s cultivation facility in Olds showed up and parked outside the library, and one of the managers approached the meeting room but was not allowed in, according to testimony presented to the ALRB.
After interacting with Teamsters organizer Quintin, the SNDL managers left.
“It was agreed the meeting should be cancelled and to let people know by text not to attend as there was a risk of being seen by a manager,” the ALRB found.
Quintin testified that SNDL employees at the meeting were “pretty scared.”
Both SNDL managers testified to the ALRB that “they were not aware they could not be represented by the union and wanted to attend the meeting out of personal interest in what the union could do for them,” according to the ruling.
The board rejected that claim, finding that the managers’ actions “are far more consistent with those of persons attempting to gather information about supporters of the union than those of employees wishing to obtain information about the union.”
The ALRB ruled that SNDL breached Alberta labor law.
“In this case, we can see the natural result of a manager deliberately attending at the site of a meeting away from the worksite and being seen by employees,” the board wrote.
The board ordered SNDL to stop any further actions that might interfere with union representation of its employees.
Further, SNDL must give the union an opportunity to engage the employees in two mandatory, hourlong meetings to cover both shifts at the Olds facility.
Mandatory meetings would “(destigmatize) attendance” by SNDL employees, the board determined.
“We’re just going to go and share our side of things,” said Quinn, the Teamsters organizer.
“And at the end of the day, the employees will make whatever decision they think is best for them.”
Quintin said SNDL’s Olds facility had roughly 300 employees as of July and that Teamsters got involved at the facility after being contacted by SNDL workers.
Cannabis companies should not interfere in union activities, he added.
“At the end of the day, it’s up to their employees whether they want to join a union or not, and it’s not up to the union or the company,” Quintin said.
“If they reach out to us asking for information on the process and how things go in a union, they should be able to get that information without any interference or intimidation tactics from their employer.”
Canadian unions have made some gains in the cannabis sector, particularly in retail stores where workers have expressed concerns over pay and safety.
A retail strike affecting some of Quebec’s government-owned recreational marijuana stores continues, causing occasional closures at some locations.
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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