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US (MI): Union drive stalling as legal precedent sought

It's been more than seven months since employees of St. Louis-based Beleaf Medical cannabis company held an election to unionize. The majority of the ballots — 11 of the 16 — have remained closed.

"It's been quite a while," said Will Braddum, a post-harvest technician at the company's Sinse facility in St. Louis. "We're just like, what is happening? Why is this happening? We're just kind of in the dark waiting." The reason behind the delay is likely that Braddum and his fellow "post-harvest" team members exist in a gray area in national labor law — which could change if their union drive is successful.

Not long after Braddum and other employees filed their union petition last September, the company argued before the National Labor Relations Board that the employees aren't manufacturer workers — they're agricultural workers. And agricultural workers don't have the right to unionize under the country's labor laws.

But Braddum and his fellow employees — along with the regional director of the NLRB — believe they're more like workers at tobacco processing plants, who courts repeatedly have found aren't agricultural workers. "I've never touched a living plant at work," Braddum said, who is organizing with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 655

Read more at St. Louis Business Journal.

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