A Rhode Island hashish dispensary has filed a lawsuit over labor peace settlement provisions within the state’s hashish legalization regulation, the Boston Globe stories. Greenleaf Compassionate Care Heart argues that it was “coerced into getting into an oppressive collective bargaining settlement” due to the 2022 regulation.
The regulation included necessities that licensed hashish dispensaries within the state enter into “labor peace agreements” with a “bona fide labor group” even when the enterprise existed previous to the regulation’s passage. Greenleaf has been a licensed medical hashish dispensary within the state since 2013.
Within the lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court docket in Rhode Island, Greenleaf argues that the enterprise had “little bargaining leverage” with its employees, who voted in 2021 to prepare underneath the United Meals and Industrial Staff (UFCW) Native 328. The employees had initially voted to unionize in 2021, previous to the legalization regulation taking impact, however negotiations have been ongoing when the legalization regulation handed in Might of 2022, the report says.
In an electronic mail to the Globe, Greenleaf CEO Seth Bock stated that whereas labor negotiations have been underway, the corporate realized that they had misplaced all of their bargaining energy with the passage of the adult-use regulation and its labor-peace provisions.
In an interview with the Globe, Marc Gursky, the legal professional for the UFCW Native, disputed the premise of Greenleaf’s lawsuit, noting the earlier negotiations.
“A labor peace settlement is about entry, so {that a} union has a good likelihood of organizing a office in change for giving up a proper to strike. Greenleaf by no means entered right into a labor peace settlement.” — Gursky to the Globe
State Rep. Scott Slater (D), who sponsored the hashish regulation, stated unions and activists had lobbied for the labor settlement provisions and that the teams additionally efficiently pushed for some hashish licenses to be reserved for employee co-operatives.
The go well with names the state, all the members of the R.I. Hashish Fee, and UFCW Native 328 as defendants.
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