Cannabis was supposed to be different. Ask the budtenders at Exclusive Brands how that worked out. When Emily Hull, a budtender at the Ann Arbor dispensary of the Livonia-based chain with seven locations in Michigan, and a handful of coworkers walked off the job in August, they were asking to join a union.
They wanted to join UFCW Local 876, the same union that represents 18,000 workers in grocery, meatpacking and food processing. And cannabis.
"This industry is about healing and caring about people and lifting each other up," Hull said at the time. "And this company is actively doing the opposite to its own workers."
What happened next was not a surprise to anyone who pays attention to labor in this industry. It was a masterclass in how to crush a union drive. The strike at Exclusive began on August 28, 2025, a day after UFCW Local 876 filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board. The charge stemmed from the termination of a pro-union employee at Exclusive's processing facility; the union called it retaliatory and illegal. It became the longest strike in the history of the American legal cannabis industry.
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