Anthony Sykes stands in front of the Green Dragon Cannabis Co. in Denver on Friday, May 10, 2024. Sykes is a harvest technician at Green Dragon and member of his union’s bargaining committee. Green Dragon employees formed the first agricultural workers’ union under a 2021 state law designed to improve working conditions on Colorado’s farms.
Now the workers have a contract with multiple built-in raises, paid vacation and a committee to address workplace safety issues. Bill sponsors said it was long past time agricultural workers in Colorado received the same benefits as other laborers. The bill’sState Rep. Karen McCormick, a Longmont Democrat and bill sponsor, said she wasn’t alarmed by the lack of unions. The law, she said, wasn’t necessarily intended to make unionization spring up at every farm, but to remove barriers should workers decide they wanted to organize.
“I would hope never to see a union,” he said. “I don’t see it as a realistic outcome under current circumstances.” Part-time workers are also far less likely to organize, he said, given that the long-term benefits of unions are more difficult to see. Plus, workers on temporary H-2A visas worry that if they agitate, they won’t be asked to return the following season.