Right to Work Foundation looks for federal assistance for the cannabis industry

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Cannabis workers turn to the NLRB for protection from mandatory unionization in the industry

Several regulations from states in which the cannabis industry is legal are violating workers’ rights, according to the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. This entity called on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel, Peter Robb, to request actions to protect workers from unionism schemes that violate rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Through a letter sent from the Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Raymond LaJeunesse, Jr. to NLRB, he is urging the general counsel to review state licensing requirements in some states.

According to LaJeunesse there is a “disturbing trend in state licensing regulation that, if left unchecked, will cause permanent damage to employees’ fundamental Section 7 rights under the National Labor Relations Act.” The letter highlights enacted schemes from several states that are affecting employees in the medicinal cannabis industry. In New Jersey, for example, the laws require “a private-sector employer to enter into a union bargaining agreement within 200 days of commencing operations.” If the employer doesn’t comply, then the license will be forfeited. So, it violates the right to decide or not to be part of a union.

In other states – California and New York – the employers must enter into “labor peace agreements” (LPAs) to be able to maintain a license. Other states, like Pennsylvania and Illinois, credit extra points to those applicants who have joined LPAs, which threatens those workers who previously decided on a different union.

The letter requests to the NLRB to enforce its authority against the stated and local governments with these regulations that infringe workers’ rights. Those schemes are “directly contrary to the NLRA’s core principle that ‘under Section 9(a), the rule is that the employees pick the union; the union does not pick the employees.”