SAUGET, Ill. (KMOX) -- Some of the workers who help customers pick out that perfect strain at the Beyond/Hello dispensary took to the grass outside their workplace on Goose Lake Road to call for unionization.
'Budtender' Ian Spaeth says they're "looking for more COVID protections, guaranteed wage increases with time, and just trying to secure our job in an at-will employment."
He says the goal is to foster more professionalism and an expectation of experience, so it's not just another retail job. He notes that Saint Louis University now offers a "Cannabis Science and Operations" certificate.
But a challenge in collective bargaining is that federal laws govern the process of unionizing but also forbid marijuana.
"It's a little bit longer of a process with the actual Labor Relations Board and getting the election going, but the organizing is very similar," Spaeth says.
"It all starts inside the dispensary, in the workplace. It takes the workers getting together, talking."
Employees at two Illinois dispensaries, one in Chicago and Ascend in Springfield, just voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers.
UFCW organized Monday's picket. Workers held signs for Local 881.
KMOX News is waiting for a response from Jushi Holdings, which owns the Beyond/Hello dispensaries.