Two ongoing cannabis-worker strikes—one in Michigan, the other in Pennsylvania—are rewriting labor history in an industry that has only recently moved from gray-market novelty to mainstream business. Each stoppage has already surpassed the previous record for length, setting new precedents for how unions, operators, and regulators navigate the maturing cannabis economy.
The strikes at Exclusive Brands in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Green Thumb Industries’ RISE dispensary in Pennsylvania began in late August and early September, respectively. Both are still unresolved, making them the longest-running work stoppages the U.S. cannabis industry has ever seen. For the first time, the clash between employees and employers is testing whether federally illegal businesses are still bound by federal labor law, and whether unions can sustain momentum in an industry still learning how to operate above ground.
Exclusive Brands: Michigan Workers Demand Recognition
The strike at Exclusive Brands began Aug. 28, triggered by the firing of a pro-union employee and the company’s refusal to recognize a union election. Workers argue the dismissal was retaliatory, a common flashpoint in early union drives.
Exclusive Brands, one of Michigan’s larger cannabis retailers, has become a focal point for labor organizing in a market facing oversaturation. Michigan’s adult-use licensing model is open, allowing a flood of dispensaries and cultivators to crowd the field. This boom has driven down wholesale prices, pressured margins, and created sharp divisions between management and workers over wages and benefits.
Employees on strike represent a relatively small but strategically vital segment of Exclusive Brands’ workforce. Their absence disrupts daily operations and underscores their role in keeping dispensaries running efficiently. The company has offered little public comment beyond insisting it remains in compliance with labor law. That silence has only amplified workers’ grievances.
RISE, Pennsylvania: Unionized Workers Push Back
If Michigan’s dispute is about recognition, Pennsylvania’s is about respect. Workers at Green Thumb Industries’ RISE dispensary in suburban Pittsburgh have been unionized with the Teamsters since 2021. Their strike, which began Sept. 1, followed months of stalled contract negotiations.
The Teamsters argue Green Thumb can afford stronger commitments on pay and benefits, citing the company’s positive financial filings. GTI, one of the nation’s largest cannabis operators, disputes that framing, pointing to the medical-only market in Pennsylvania, where capped licenses restrict expansion and growth potential.
Still, the workers’ proposals center on basics: competitive wages, health benefits, and job security. The strike reflects a growing determination among cannabis workers to leverage traditional unions for bargaining power. The Teamsters’ involvement is significant, signaling that cannabis labor disputes are no longer small-scale skirmishes but are drawing in some of the country’s most experienced labor organizations.
Strikes in Context: From Short Flashpoints to Prolonged Standoffs
The strikes in Michigan and Pennsylvania have already outlasted the previous record—a 13-day stoppage in April 2023. That strike, though brief, foreshadowed the deeper conflicts now unfolding.
Historically, labor organizing in cannabis has mirrored the sector’s volatility. Early enthusiasm for unionizing sometimes gave way to de-unionization or attrition as businesses shuttered or reorganized. The current disputes suggest workers are taking a longer view, prepared to hold out even when the companies are equally determined to wait them out.
The divergent strategies highlight how labor’s role in cannabis is evolving: recognition battles in some states, contract disputes in others, each testing different levers of power.
Markets Under Pressure: Michigan vs. Pennsylvania
The market conditions surrounding each strike could not be more different.
Michigan’s adult-use industry is a classic case of oversupply. With no hard cap on licenses, cultivators and retailers rushed in, hoping to ride the wave of legalization. The result: wholesale flower prices dropping to historic lows and retail competition fierce enough to erode profitability. Workers argue that in such a saturated environment, companies may try to cut labor costs first—a pressure point unions are determined to resist.
Pennsylvania, by contrast, is still medical-only and tightly capped. Operators there face high barriers to entry but enjoy stable margins thanks to limited competition. For employees, that profitability is an argument for higher wages. For management, constrained growth is a reason to resist.
These contrasts reveal the dual challenge facing the U.S. cannabis industry: one state drowning in licenses, another bottled up by regulation. Both conditions make labor disputes more combustible.
Economic and Labor Realities
Beyond cannabis, the broader economy shapes these conflicts. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports steady cost-of-living increases across essentials like housing and groceries. In a tight labor market, workers with transferable skills—from retail to warehousing—can exit the cannabis sector for jobs with steadier hours and benefits.
Cannabis workers, often classified as low-skilled despite the complexity of compliance-heavy roles, remain vulnerable. Companies can attempt attrition strategies, betting workers will run out of patience or money. Yet unions argue that high turnover weakens businesses in a sector already struggling with regulatory burdens.
For unions, the challenge is tactical: sustaining morale, maintaining public support, and persuading workers in other shops that collective action is worth the risk.
Legal and Regulatory Fault Lines
Federal illegality looms over every cannabis labor dispute. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) protects most private-sector workers, but its applicability to cannabis businesses remains contested.
The National Labor Relations Board has asserted jurisdiction over cannabis companies in past rulings, treating them as employers like any other. Still, operators occasionally argue that federal illegality exempts them from compliance. That gray zone creates uncertainty, leaving strikes like those in Michigan and Pennsylvania partly as test cases for how far protections truly extend.
Legal scholars suggest outcomes will hinge less on cannabis’s federal status than on whether the NLRB continues to assert authority. With Board appointments shifting depending on federal politics, the future remains unsettled.
What Comes Next
The dual strikes are more than isolated disputes. They may mark a pivot point in how labor is woven into the cannabis industry’s DNA. If workers win stronger contracts, unions will likely gain traction nationwide. If companies weather the strikes without conceding, operators elsewhere may harden against labor drives.
Public sentiment could prove decisive. Cannabis remains broadly popular, and sympathy for workers in a young, profit-driven industry may weigh on operators. At the same time, federal legalization—or even incremental reform—could clarify labor law and force companies to rethink their strategies.
For workers, success means enforceable recognition, fair wages, and benefits that match the sector’s promises of legitimacy. For companies, success might mean avoiding precedents that raise labor costs across an already pressured industry.
Arizona’s Connection: Lessons for a Maturing Market
Though these strikes are unfolding in the Midwest and Northeast, Arizona’s cannabis market is watching closely. Unlike Michigan, Arizona capped licenses and tightly regulates operators, creating stability more akin to Pennsylvania’s model. Yet like Michigan, Arizona has seen significant price compression as cultivation scales and more dispensaries open.
GreenPharms, as a legacy Arizona operator, has long emphasized community accountability alongside quality cultivation. These strikes underscore why that matters: when workers feel heard and supported, disputes are less likely to escalate into prolonged stoppages. Arizona operators navigating tight margins may see worker satisfaction not as a cost but as an investment in resilience.
The strikes are a reminder that cannabis is no longer a novelty business. It is a regulated industry where labor, law, and economics collide—sometimes for weeks on end.
The strikes at Exclusive Brands in Michigan and Green Thumb’s RISE in Pennsylvania are the longest in U.S. cannabis history. They represent more than labor disputes; they are stress tests for an industry still defining itself.
Whether unions or companies emerge stronger, the lessons will reverberate nationwide, including in Arizona. Cannabis is growing up, and with that maturity comes conflict. What remains to be seen is whether the industry will meet those conflicts with the creativity and fairness it often promises—or retreat into the same patterns that have long defined American labor disputes.
