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Employees at the Curaleaf dispensary in Oxford have joined a number of Massachusetts cannabis industry workers who have become members of labor unions since the state legalized adult-use cannabis in 2016.
Curaleaf workers voted 15 to 3 to join UFCW Local 1445, said Steff Coronella, an organizer with the union. UFCW Local 1445 is a Dedham-based, cannabis-focused local of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents 1.2 million workers in the United States and Canada.
Curaleaf’s Oxford workers are the latest in Central Massachusetts to join the UFCW. Workers at the Sira Naturals cultivation and processing facility in Milford became the first Massachusetts cannabis workers to unionize when they joined UFCW in 2019, with workers at the then-Cultivate cultivation facility in Leicester following their lead by joining the union in 2020. That facility would later be bought by Cresco Labs, a multistate cannabis company based in Chicago.
Workers at a Curaleaf medical marijuana dispensary in Hanover joined UFCW in September 2022, and workers at the company’s facilities in states including New Jersey and Rhode Island have unionized.
The vote by Curaleaf’s Oxford workers came after the company declined to voluntarily recognize their unionization efforts in February.
