Ascend Montclair Dispensary workers have unionized, possibly helping set a standard for the thousands of workers expected to enter New Jersey’s budding cannabis industry.
On Monday, Feb. 7, Cannabis Engineers Extractors and Distributors — or CEED — Local 420 announced the ratification of Ascend’s first labor contract for the workers, known as “budtenders.”
Ascend’s Montclair workers are the first to seek CEED as their bargaining unit in New Jersey.
The first dispensary to organize in New Jersey was Garden State Dispensary in Woodbridge, Eatontown and Union, under the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 152, which represents 14,000 workers in retail stores, healthcare facilities, manufacturing and the public sector across four states. The workers of Verano NJ, which owns Zen Leaf in Neptune and Lawrence, have also been represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union since January of last year.