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Curaleaf's Oxford dispensary
February 29, 2024
Workers at Oxford cannabis dispensary seek to unionize, citing low morale and pay
Image | Courtesy of UFCW Local 1445
Curaleaf workers Todd Daigneault (left) and Joe Bolandrina rally outside of the company's Oxford location on Feb. 16.
Workers at a dispensary in Oxford are attempting to unionize their workplace, in what appears to be turning into a fight against one of the largest cannabis companies in the world over what the employees say are poor working conditions and low morale.
All but two of the 25 non-management employees at the Curaleaf dispensary in Oxford signed on to a Feb. 16 letter to their supervisor, said dispensary employee Denise Gliniecki, seeking for the Wakefield-based multinational cannabis company to voluntarily recognize their efforts to join United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1445.
Management has been unresponsive to requests for improvements and morale at the dispensary has been extremely low compared to prior years, said Gliniecki, a 69-year-old worker at the dispensary who has been employed at Curaleaf for six years.
“It’s kind of sad when you see [co-workers] walking into the building looking like they’re on death row,” she said, “It wasn’t like this before.”
Job security, a pay raise, and better health insurance are the main goals of the unionization movement, said Gliniecki, adding conditions at the dispensary have led to a high degree of turnover.
“There’s a lot of demand to do things that really aren’t in the realm of your job description, so some people get burnt out,” she said. “It’s unfortunate, because I’ve worked with a lot of good people.”
Curaleaf operates 147 dispensaries and 21 cultivation facilities across 17 states, according to its website. The company has medical cannabis operations in the United Kingdom and Europe. Curaleaf did not respond to requests for comment regarding the unionization efforts in Oxford.
The workers gave Curaleaf a date of Feb. 26 to voluntarily recognize their union, but with that deadline now passed, workers will work to move forward with a vote, said Jack Fell, communications director at UFCW Local 1445.
If their efforts are successful, Curaleaf’s Oxford workers will be the latest cannabis industry employees 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 also unionized.
“We’re hoping to bring more facilities on board, because we think every cannabis worker deserves a union,” Fell said.
Workers at the facility said they have been frustrated with the company’s response to their union efforts.
“Management has already begun this song and dance of attempting to quash this unionization movement, with daily huddles where they read off of a script telling us how awful unions are,” Curaleaf dispensary worker Gilford Murphy wrote in an email to WBJ. “If they truly want to be transparent, they should show us these statistics of how unions don’t work, and where they got these numbers from.”
Joseph Bolandrina, another worker at the Oxford store, said in an email to WBJ that he first got involved in cannabis advocacy in the 1980s with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a group headquartered in Washington D.C. pushing for cannabis law reform since 1970.
“Now, advocacy calls again to establish a fair and respectful working environment for the folks that go face to face with [cannabis] flower consumers,” Bolandrina wrote. “That’s why I stand with United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1445.”
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