More Missouri marijuana workers seek union election after federal labor ruling

Katie Hazelwonder was ready for a change after 12 years working as a welder. The opportunity came unexpectedly, when one day she walked into a Proper Cannabis dispensary in St. Louis.

“The people were great,” Hazelwonder said. “They were just so nice and welcoming, and no judgment. I was like, ‘You know what, I’m gonna look into this.’”

Eighteen months later, she’s a trainer in Proper’s post-harvest department, where the workers largely process and package marijuana products.

“I love it here,” she said. “We truly are a family, and I plan on retiring from Proper someday. But at the same time, we deserve better.”

Hazelwonder was “absolutely heartbroken,” she said, when she saw the size of her department’s recent raises. While other departments at Proper’s cultivation facility received raises in dollar amounts, she says her team was given “under 50 cents.”

Hazelwonder and 45 other workers in the post-harvest department filed a petition this week to hold an election to unionize, hoping to push for better pay, job security and working conditions, she said. 

What gave her team an extra boost of confidence to file, she said, was a federal decision earlier this month from the National Labor Relations Board, which decides labor disputes and sets national policy on union organizing.

The board rejected another St. Louis marijuana company’s argument that post-harvest employees are agricultural workers, who are excluded from a federal act that protects most private-sector employees’ right to unionize without fear of retaliation. 

“Thanks to the recent NLRB ruling we have the opportunity to sit at the table and make it better for us and the others to come,” she said. “And it’s not going to stop with us. It’s only the beginning.”

Proper Cannabis declined a request for comment. 

‘Great momentum’

Jack Christian, a post-harvest technician, said he never expected to have a job he loves this much. 

“People tell me in the department, ‘You walk around so happy, like a cartoon character,’” Christian said. “It’s honestly because I really enjoy being here with you guys.”

But there are hazards that come with the job, he said, that cause “alarm” for him and others.. Technicians like him search for mold in the dried marijuana on a daily basis. Some weeks, he said,  there might be a “bad strain,” and workers will be picking through mold more than other times. 

“In the past year, I know three people in our department have gotten pneumonia,” he said. “The air quality is hard, and we’ve complained for months about that.”

The company is currently updating the building with more fans, he said.

Christian comes from a family of proud union members involved in different trades, he said, so he understands the challenges that could come now that the petition is filed. 

“The risk of even saying the word is in the workplace is a scary thing,” he said. 

A few days before Proper workers filed their petition, employees at Sinse marijuana cultivation and manufacturing facility in south St. Louis won an election to unionize after a two-year battle.

The majority of the ballots had remained sealed since 2024 because BeLeaf Medical, the facility’s parent company, whether the workers were agricultural employees. 

The board stated in the decision that “none of the workers employed in the classifications at issue here are agricultural laborers under the secondary definition of agriculture.”

The Sinse employees whose union votes BeLeaf questioned largely made pre-rolls, entered data on computers and processed dried marijuana into finished products, the board found. Those are similar tasks Christian’s team performs.

The board’s decision also stated that each challenge would have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, meaning not all post-harvest workers are automatically covered.

Proper employees are represented by United Food & Commercial Workers Local 655, which also represented the Sinse employees. Christian understands Sinse workers faced a long battle and a number of their employees were fired after filing, he said, which worries him. 

“For Sinse, there was retaliation,” he said, “but also seeing how Sinse did just win their election was some great energy and momentum for us.” 

And there’s another reason to be confident they won’t face a challenge, Hazelwonder said. 

Missouri legislators passed a law last month that will give all people employed in cannabis-related businesses, “including cultivation, processing, manufacturing, distribution, retail and support operations,” the right to organize and to bargain collectively with their employers.

“Cannabis industry employment, including work in climate-controlled indoor cultivation and processing facilities, is not ‘agricultural labor’ as used for purposes of exemptions from collective bargaining and shall be treated as covered employment under Missouri’s collective bargaining protections,” it states.

Gov. Mike Kehoe signed the bill into law the same day that the NLRB decision was issued, and the law goes into effect on Nov. 12. 

“Honestly, both of them put together, I feel like we’re unstoppable at this point,” Hazelwonder said. “I mean the sky’s the limit. Each one of them helped, and the fact that they both kind of came out around the same time is huge.”