California stoners find an unlikely ally in the UFCW

Oaksterdam University, where stoners go to get schooled on the art of growing ganja, isn’t exactly a bastion of blue-collar idealism. Or it wasn’t until this week, when the staff and faculty at Oaksterdam’s Oakland campus joined the Oakland United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5. What would have seemed like a strange union in the halcyon days of organized labor now seems to make a modicum of sense, and not just to potheads: If anyone can muscle California politicians into supporting marijuana legalization, it’s the UFCW.

In November, Californians will vote on a ballot initiative to “control and tax cannabis.” If the initiative passes, California residents ages 21 and up will be allowed to use marijuana recreationally. Pollsters have
reported a dead heat among the bill’s supporters and opponents, and bong-rippers are so excited they can hardly see straight. But there are still six months to November, which is plenty of time for the scale to tip in favor of prolonging prohibition. Enter the UFCW and all that comes with union membership: An army of picketers and flier distributors, influence in the California legislature, and deep, green campaign coffers.

“This partnership legitimizes the cannabis industry,” said Dale Sky Clare, a charming redhead who serves as Oaksterdam’s Chancellor when she’s not teaching Medical Marijuana 101. “Until now, we’ve always been a movement.”

And movements are not so good at pressing flesh with legislative suits. Or convincing skeptical voters that there’s no harm in legalizing Hindu Kush and Strawberry Cough. But Clare believes the UFCW officials when they say they can help the marijuana movement do both those things.

“They’re offering protection,” Clare said in a recent interview. “When we walk into a city council meeting with a local union who they’ve trusted for years to regulate local industries, it’s like comfort food to them. They trust unions. The fear of back alley deals dissipates.”

At first, the folks at Oaksterdam didn’t want a union. The employees were happy with their pay, their hours, and the way the school is managed. They’re so used to feeling marginalized by mainstream
institutions, that they “were worried about how the unions might interfere with what has been a really healthy relationship,” Clare said. “It took some convincing and educating of our employees to get them to accept the union.”

Nothing much will change at Oaksterdam now that it’s unionized, she added. Sure, vacation days, dispensed amicably and generously in the past, will be set in stone. But otherwise, the university already has enviable employee-friendly policies in place.

Still, Clare sees the deal as a win-win. Oakland’s UFCW Local 5 will ”educate its members” about the advantages of controlling and taxing marijuana, and encourage them to spread the gospel of letting adults do what they will in private. Not because the union endorses marijuana use, says Local 5 organizer Dan Rush, but because weed and hemp, like cigarettes and alcohol in UFCW supermarkets, mean jobs. Union jobs.