Our Perspective
Cannabis Legalization
Will Benefit All
New Yorkers
By Stuart Appelbaum, President
Retail, Wholesale and Department
Store Union, UFCW
Twitter: @sappelbaum
Caribbean L 20 ife, APRIL, 2-8, 2021
A tourist, wearing a protective face mask amid the new cornavirus pandemic,
walks along the beach shore in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, March 2,
2021. The Caribbean is hunting for visitors to jump-start the stalled economy
in one of the world’s most tourism-dependent regions. Associated Press/
Ramon Espinosa, fi le
Caribbean seeks vaccines
to revive economy
By Danica Coto
Associated Press
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The
Caribbean is hunting for visitors and
vaccines to jump-start the stalled economy
in one of the world’s most tourismdependent
regions.
Clear waters and warm sand attracted
a record 31.5 million tourists to the
Caribbean in 2019, but visits plummeted
by an estimated 60 percent to 80
percent as the pandemic hit last year.
That’s devastating for a region whose
countries depend heavily on visitors for
income.
“Many countries prefer hurricanes
compared to what has happened with
the pandemic,” said Vincent Vanderpool
Wallace, a former Bahamian tourism
minister who also led the Caribbean
Tourism Organization.
Tens of thousands of tourism-related
jobs were lost, including those held by
Nadia Kidd and her mother in Jamaica.
Kidd, 31, was a waitress at a resort and
her mother worked at a guest house.
Kidd, like many other workers, has
yet to receive her severance pay and
now runs a tiny grocery store out of
her home to support her mother and
daughter.
“Everything is all on me,” said Kidd,
who worked at the Melia Braco Village
resort in Trelawny. “I have loans to pay,
light bill and internet (that I) have to
pay because my daughter has to go to
school online.”
Desperate to create safe conditions
for tourism, the Caribbean is turning to
India and China for vaccines at a time
when global supplies are strained and
richer nations are ahead of them in line
for shots from other sources. A few have
been fortunate to get quick shipments,
while others could wait weeks, if not
months.
The Caribbean saw COVID-19 levels
rising in November, along with variants
feared to be more contagious.
More than 522,000 cases and more than
7,500 deaths have been reported in 35 of
the region’s countries and territories.
“The rate of increase has been alarming,”
said Dr. Joy St. John, executive
director of the Trinidad-based Caribbean
Public Health Agency.
The small nations adopted a variety
of anti-virus measures, nearly all
requiring visitors at a minimum to show
recent negative tests upon arrival.
Cuba — the largest Caribbean nation
and the only one working on its own
vaccines — choked off arrivals after seeing
infections surge. It requires visitors
to stay in designated hotels and to take
new tests upon landing.
International travelers to St. Kitts
and Nevis must stay at certain hotels,
and St. Eustatius requires visitors to
register their reason for traveling before
giving approval.
Many islands ask visitors to isolate,
though how long and under what conditions
can vary: Those arriving in the
Cayman Islands or Barbados must stay
inside a hotel for at least a week or face
jail. Others, like Puerto Rico, don’t
require quarantine if a negative test is
presented upon arrival, and tourists
can roam the U.S. territory’s beaches
and forests.
Aruba, Anguilla, Curacao and
Montserrat and others have promoted
themselves as havens for those who can
work by internet from a room by the
sea, although officials can be harsh on
visitors who flout virus restrictions.
At least 13 countries in the region
have signed up for the World Health
Organization’s COVAX program, created
to ensure access to COVID-19 shots
for low- and middle-income countries.
The Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act
(MRTA) has become law, and it’s a success all
New Yorkers can be proud of. The law, legalizing
adult use cannabis in New York, puts fairness at its
center; communities of color, workers and
entrepreneurs are prioritized in this program. The final law reflects the
longstanding efforts of worker and community activists to create legislation
that will lift up all of our communities.
RWDSU Local 338 represents nearly 500 workers in New York’s medical
cannabis industry, and now, with the legalization of adult use cannabis, we
have an opportunity to create more quality jobs. We’ve already seen in New
York the difference unions can make in the cannabis industry. In 2014,
RWDSU Local 338 fought for the passage of the Compassionate Care Act,
which legalized medical marijuana, to ensure the industry created good union
careers for the workforce. As a result, workers in cannabis cultivation,
production, distribution, and retail in New York won RWDSU membership,
and in turn, negotiated strong union contracts.
With RWDSU Local 338, workers have won guarantees of full-time
hours, significant wage increases, generous paid time off, quality health
coverage for themselves and their families at no cost, retirement savings
benefits, and other crucial workplace protections including on-the-job training.
The only way to guarantee these benefits are provided to workers is through a
union. The best way to ensure a union exists in the workplace is through
mandatory labor standards in the law. Unions have made a difference for
these workers, and now the goal is to ensure that the same benefits – and the
protections of a union voice – are available to workers in the new adult use
cannabis industry.
A Diverse Industry to Build Stronger Communities
Legalization provides an excellent starting point for reversing the discriminatory
cost the decades-long “war on drugs” has had on communities of color.
As a union that organizes workers in several low-wage industries including retail,
the majority of our members are people of color who live in communities
that were targeted by discriminatory drug laws. We all have a stake in ensuring
the adult use cannabis industry not only creates good jobs, but also provides
true entrepreneurial opportunities for our membership and their
communities. That is why it’s crucial that cannabis industry ownership, management,
and workforce reflects the diversity that makes New York great.
The RWDSU and our allies also support the resentencing provisions for
those who are behind bars for cannabis-related crimes, and expunging and
sealing criminal records of those who went to jail for cannabis-related
offenses. As the city, state, and country move forward toward cannabis
legalization, it’s important those who have been prosecuted for cannabisrelated
offenses – disproportionately people of color – are allowed to move
forward with their lives free of outdated legal repercussions and the stigma
that accompanies them.
Legalizing cannabis for adult use opens New York State to an incredible
new avenue for job growth, criminal justice reform, and
economic opportunities for small and medium-sized
businesses, as well as increased revenue to fund
important public services. By making sure that the
industry is created responsibly, we can make sure
that as the industry flourishes, our communities
and working families flourish as well.
www.rwdsu.org
/www.rwdsu.org
