The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 480 ( UFCW) has been a part of Hawaii’s communities for decades.

Thousands of our members work hard every day to serve you in grocery stores and pharmacies across the islands.

As a union, we work together to build relationships with companies that benefit the workers, the companies and you.

Union and company partnerships result in a highly trained professional workforce that ensures your food is safe and workers have good wages and benefits to support their families.

In the end, the real winner is Hawaii’s economy and its people.

UFCW is one of the largest private unions in the country. We represent not only retail and pharmaceutical workers but also cannabis industry workers in states where marijuana — both medical and recreational — has been legalized. This has made us a leading voice in the cannabis industry across the country, advocating for a system that works for all stakeholders — patients, workers, dispensaries and the communities where we operate.

Now we in Hawaii — and in particular the regulators at the state Department of Health who are licensing cannabis dispensaries — are facing a critical crossroads as we begin approving licensees.

We think most people who fought for legalized medical marijuana have the same basic goals: ensuring patients get the safe medicine that they need, that workers get treated with respect and earn a fair day’s wage, that dispensary owners are responsible members of the community, and that the broader Hawaii economy gets the full benefit of this new industry.

But what we’ve learned from our experiences across the country is that these dreams don’t always come true.

Some business owners don’t operate responsibly. It is therefore important that the state consider awarding licenses to companies that are committed to operating at the highest standards.

We’re working with a company that seeks to set the bar by which other medical marijuana dispensaries will be measured. It has already committed to meeting and exceeding mainland standards for its workers, worker training and medicine.

As a consortium of local business leaders, agricultural experts and medical professionals, it knows that there’s profit in being responsible, respectable and community-oriented.

But words aren’t enough. That’s why we’re working with it to establish the safest practices and highest standards for this new industry in the islands — and invite others to partner with us toward this goal as well.

Real commitments, along with a workforce that has the strength of a union contract (so they have the opportunity to work with both the management and union, if things are wrong), are critical to ensuring that Hawaii receives all the benefits of medical marijuana possible.

Now it’s up to the Department of Health. We hope that it will see the wisdom in evaluating applicants not just on their business plans, but also on the real benefits the community can have from each dispensary.

Such an approach would result in an industry that makes real commitments to patients, workers and all Hawaii.