One of California’s largest legal cannabis companies announced Monday that it will fundamentally revamp its labor practices after a massive immigration raid on two company facilities last month. The raid killed a worker and detained more than 360 people, including 14 minors.
Glass House Brands announced “termination of its relationship” with two farm labor contractors, who provided workers for the cannabis greenhouse operations in Camarillo and Carpinteria. It also announced that “significant changes have been made to labor practices beyond the legal requirements”.
This includes hiring experts to carefully examine workers’ documents, as well as hiring consulting firms’ guide service services to advise companies to determine best practices for employment qualifications. The company is led by Julie Myers Wood, former ICE director of President George W. Bush.
The company also said it had signed a new “labor peace” agreement with the International Team Fraternity.
Glass House officials declined to comment publicly in a press release, but sources close to the company said officials wanted to “make sure we never had the July 10 situation. We will never happen again.”
That day, federal agents wearing masks and riot gear raided glass houses in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties in the state’s largest ice workplace, which had attacked in recent memory. Agents chased panicked workers through the vast greenhouse, deploying tear gas and deadly projectiles to protesters and employees.
A worker, Jaime Alanis Garcia, fell three floors from the roof of a greenhouse that was trying to escape the capture, and died. Others bleed from broken glass shards or hid on roofs or under leaves for hours, shrouded in plastic. More than 360 people (including at least two U.S. citizens, one of whom is a U.S. Army veteran), include a mixture of workers, workers, protesters and passers-by.
After the raid, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the goal of the glass house was because “we know that, especially from the case work, we have built cases for weeks and weeks and weeks where there are children that can be trafficked, exploited, and there are exploited people involved in crime.”
To date, neither the Department of Homeland Security nor the U.S. Department of Justice has announced any legal action regarding alleged trafficking and exploitation of teenagers.
Glass House said in a press release that only nine direct employees were detained. All others accept employees of their labor contractors, or “no company-related.”
Regarding the government’s arguments about the discovery of children working in marijuana, the company said: “While the identity of the so-called minor has not been revealed yet, the company was able to determine that if the reports were true, none of them were Glass House employees.” California Labor Law allows children under the age of 12 to work in agricultural work, but workers must be at least 21 years of age to work in marijuana.
Raid glass houses and their labor force. Many workers were detained or disappeared, fearing to return. Those who stayed were very upset companies called in grief counselors.
People have also been shaken throughout the entire world of legal marijuana. Glass House has been backed by wealthy investors and has a stylish corporate image in California’s cannabis wild world, long known as “Weed Walmart.” Many in the California cannabis industry are concerned about a raid in the glass house, which shows that the federal ceasefire on marijuana (legal in California but legal in the federal government) is over.
Following the raid, United Farm Workers and other organizations warned farm workers who are not citizens, even those with legal status – to avoid working in marijuana because “marijuana is still criminalized under federal law.”
Glass House said in a statement that on the day of the raid, a search warrant serving in the company was seeking “evidence of possible immigration violations.” Sources close to the company said officials have not had contact with the federal government since the raid.
Some farm labor advocates are not impressed by the company’s announcement of a workforce transformation, saying that farm workers will pay the price.
Lucas Zucker is the co-executive director of the Central Coast Alliance for the joint implementation of a sustainable economy, or Glass House is using agricultural labor contractors to avoid liability, “although their workers stay away from their families in handcuffs.”
“This shows the double standard of our legal system where companies can profit from the immigrant workers their businesses rely on but dry their hands when inconvenience,” he said. “Many farm workers are still working to navigate the mess of labor contractors and are not paying for the work they do at Glass House.”
Sources near the glass house said company officials want to make sure everyone who went to work on the day of the raid can receive all the wages they owe.
Company officials authorized all workers to pay at 11:30 PM on the day of the raid because workers who completed their shifts could not leave because immigration agents blocked the door. Farm labor contractors have been paid and should release their wages to all workers, sources said.
“We don’t want anyone to be short-circuited,” the source said.
