Cannabis entrepreneur Osbert Orduña didn’t just stoically assent to his business, the Cannabis Place in Jersey City, becoming the first unionized dispensary in North Jersey. He passionately supported it — and long before he secured a cannabis license.
And, really, much longer than that.
Orduña’s story began as a kid raised by a single parent in New York City’s public housing. He said his mother landing a union job in administrative work — preventing her from having to work on-call shifts or continuing to navigate life without good pay or benefits — meant the difference between being a latchkey kid and having the stability of his mother’s presence in his household.
“It meant the difference between poverty and the middle class,” he said. “I was inspired by that. And I’ve always wanted to do the same, if not better, for others.”
It was at the end of July that the local licensed adult-use dispensary operator signed a union recognition agreement. It’s one of the only small business cannabis operations in the region and the sole independently owned dispensary so far to opt into unionization.
The business, which recently launched a free delivery service and also this year opened a licensed dispensary location in Queens, New York, did so amid a period of growth for the company.
And, although Orduña speaks of a moral element in ensuring stronger worker protections in the industry he’s entered, he’ll admit to there being a competitive advantage in standing out in an increasingly crowded field in the region.
He measures that in not only new business interest, but bolstered recruitment efforts. In the weeks since their union recognition, the business has seen a 70% uptick in the amount of job applications it receives, Orduña said.
“And we’re not even actively hiring right now, but people just want to have their résumé ready for us to review when we do start hiring,” he said. “Almost half of those people already work in the current cannabis market, as well.”
All the reports of the cannabis industry’s still-unresolved issues with finding banking partners reportedly extend to employees often being paid in cash. Orduña also claims there are unlicensed entities operating in the region that are working employees up to seven days a week, or on 12-hour shifts without overtime.
“We’re even seeing horror stories of people paid in weed, or those working in processing being stripped down to undergarments because someone has seen one too many episodes of ‘Narcos,’” he said. “It’s that type of ridiculousness … that just shouldn’t be acceptable for businesses in this day and age.”
Even under more typical circumstances, Orduña said cannabis businesses backed by large corporations look at commitments to recruits as short-term. He adds those hires tend to carry a 90- to 120-day shelf-life while a market is being tested out.
And that’s not doing already underserved communities any favors.
“It’s imperative we provide people something different, and pay true living wages, to make a positive impact,” Orduña said. “No one was coming into the Greenville section of Jersey City and creating 22 union jobs that are going to be long-term careers. In fact, we’ve been the only ones that have opened substantive employment in the Greenville section in nearly a decade.”
It’s Orduña’s view that the industry around him isn’t necessarily happy about him pushing for cannabis business unionization in a sector that’s just starting to take shape regionally.
It’s also his view that there’s no sense in waiting.
“We can’t become an industry making the headlines like we’re seeing with coffee, where every barista nationally is fighting hard against immense pushback to unionize for basic benefits,” he said. “We should be thinking about this industry becoming a model for other industries to follow.”
The service-disabled veteran entrepreneur is hoping for the exact thing that some of those around him in the cannabis space aren’t: That his company’s embrace of unions has a ripple effect.
“I’m a Marine, and we lead by example,” he said. “I’m passionate about this. We need for it to be done correctly, especially because our Black and brown communities during (cannabis) prohibition were exploited by the legal system, and we now have an opportunity as brown business owners to set right the wrongs of the past. Part of that is making sure we take care of our workforce, so we’re not doubling down on the exploitation of marginalized communities.”
