Fresh off a win: It\u2019s all smiles for the newly minted members of UFCW Local 360 who work in the production department at Smiling Bud.<\/p>\n
Manufacturing workers at Smiling Bud in Ridgefield, N.J., joined UFCW Local 360 earlier this month, extending the union\u2019s growing presence across the state\u2019s legal cannabis industry.<\/p>\n
Smiling Bud operates a 52,000-square-foot cannabis facility which houses the company\u2019s extraction, manufacturing, packaging, and fulfillment services. Employees there manufacture edibles, concentrates, and drinks, as well as white-label, private-label, and co-manufactured products for cannabis brands.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 10 workers are looking for improvements to wages, holiday pay, vacation, and healthcare contributions.<\/p>\n
For Smiling Bud employee Jessyca Padilla, the decision to organize was about having a meaningful voice in the workplace and showing solidarity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d be lying if I said this wasn\u2019t scary,\u201d Padilla said. \u201cTaking a stand and speaking up for yourself and your co-workers can feel incredibly vulnerable, especially when you don\u2019t know how the people above you will respond. But I also know how much my team cares about this work and about each other. For me, this is about building a workplace where people feel respected, heard, supported, and valued. Unionizing is our way of saying that we believe our voices matter. I\u2019m proud to stand alongside my co-workers, and hopeful that together we can create a better future at Smiling Bud.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Smiling Bud vote marks another step in efforts to organize workers across the cannabis supply chain. Through its Cannabis Workers Rising campaign, the union represents workers in retail dispensaries, cultivation, manufacturing, and other areas of the industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cJessyca\u2019s words say a lot about why workers organize,\u201d said Hugh Giordano, UFCW Local 360\u2019s director of organizing. \u201cIt takes courage to stand up and say you want a voice in your future, and it takes commitment to join your co-workers in making it happen. Manufacturing workers are essential to developing and creating the products that ultimately reach consumers. And like all workers, they deserve respect, stability and the opportunity to build real careers as this industry grows.\u201d<\/p>\n
An important component of New Jersey\u2019s regulated marketplace, manufacturers transform cannabis into finished products, including concentrates and edibles, and provide production, packaging and related services so brands and retailers can bring those products to market.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew Jersey cannabis isn\u2019t an experiment anymore. It\u2019s an industry, and an increasingly sophisticated one,\u201d said Sam Ferraino Jr., president of UFCW Local 360. \u201cThat means any conversation about its future must include workers throughout the supply chain. From cultivation and manufacturing to sales and retail, it\u2019s the workers who move this industry forward every day. They deserve to have a say in what it becomes. We\u2019re very proud to welcome the workers at Smiling Bud to Local 360.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fresh off a win: It\u2019s all smiles for the newly minted members of UFCW Local 360 who work in the production department at Smiling Bud. Manufacturing workers at Smiling Bud in Ridgefield, N.J., joined UFCW Local 360 earlier this month, extending the union\u2019s growing presence across the state\u2019s legal cannabis industry. Smiling Bud operates a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[3138,3136,3134,3137,3135],"class_list":["post-38376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-jersey","tag-new-jersey","tag-new-jersey-dining","tag-new-jersey-food","tag-new-jersey-grocery-stores","tag-new-jersey-restaurants"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117362011912268075","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}