ORONTO, Canada – Workers at a Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) voted overwhelmingly in favour of
unionization with UFCW Canada.
The call centre is operated by Line One Contact Centres Inc., a company based out of Calgary, Alberta. Workers at the call centre, located in downtown Toronto, provide important customer support and mail tracking services for Ontario’s online cannabis store. The fundamental issues which drove the employees to support unionization were lack of hours, lack of consistency in scheduling, and the need for job security and just cause protection.
UFCW represents cannabis production and retail workers in California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Minnesota and New Mexico. UFCW Canada represents the first unionized cannabis retail workers in Canada. In 2015, the Ontario Labour Relations Board issued a decision deeming cannabis production workers as agricultural workers. Ever since the Mike Harris government in 1995, agricultural workers have been excluded from the Act and thereby do not have a clear path to unionization. UFCW Canada will continue to fight for all workers involved in the cannabis sector.
