Such responses to sexual harassment by labor unions have largely been shaped by the sexism rooted in the birth of the labor movement . It is the same male-centered philosophy that breeds the sexual harassment unions are intended to protect workers against. The first labor unions were over represented by male workers and as such, they discouraged women from reporting harassment by other union members, reinforcing labor unions as organizations perpetuating patriarchy . Despite the tumultuous past unions have had with sexual harassment, many are now taking a proactive approach to address the issue. UNITE HERE, in particular, has worked on addressing sexual harassment in the hospitality industry in cities across the country. Their Chicago Hands Off Pants On campaign, involved a member survey which found 58% of hotel workers and 77% of casino workers had been sexually harassed by a guest . The survey gave the union the data it needed to push for protections through both collective bargaining and eventually a city wide ordinance to protect both union and nonunion Chicago hotel workers . Moreover, in 2016, California members of the Service Employees International Union began their Ya Basta campaign and succeeded in winning statewide legislation in California requiring all janitors in the state to receive training on rape and sexual harassment prevention . Because of the growing relationship between labor unions and the cannabis industry, labor unions serve as a unique point of intervention for addressing sexual harassment in this particular workplace. Specifically,clone rack it useful to consider the social-ecological model proposed by Bronfenbrenner . His model had been referenced and adopted to fit several public interventions including violence prevention .

The individual, relationship, community and societal levels of the social ecological framework focus on personal factors, interpersonal relationships involving family, friends workplaces and neighborhoods, and broader structural factors such as health systems and polices, respectively . Each level of the model can be addressed to holistically grapple with the issue of violence, including sexual harassment in the workplace. Therefore, this particular study seeks to explore the community level as an opportunity for intervention, specifically through the growing relationship between the cannabis industry and labor unions.The study population was drawn from a source sample of cannabis employees represented by UFCW in Los Angeles County. Currently, UFCW Local 770 represents 20 dispensaries in Los Angeles County and approximately 400 workers to-date. In order to participate in the study, participants had to be at least 21 years of age, employed in a dispensary shop in Los Angeles County and had to be a current member of Local 770. As of August 2018, California is home to at least 358 retail stores with varying levels of permission including Temporary Approval or License to sell Medicinal or Adult-Use cannabis and cannabis products . Of the 358 legal stores located in the state, 188 are located in Los Angeles County , confirming Los Angeles area as an optimal location to investigate sexual harassment in the retail sector of the cannabis industry. This was a mixed methods study using a cross sectional design to analyze survey data from a convenience sample of dispensary workers represented by UFCW Local 770 in Los Angeles County. Surveys were used as part of this study to assess the demographics of the workforce, prevalence, frequency, types of sexual harassment occurring in the workplace, and workers’ knowledge on workplace policies regarding sexual harassment. In-depth interviews were conducted to better understand organizational risk factors of sexual harassment that are specific to cannabis dispensaries. Recruitment flyers with a description of the study were posted in the 20 Los Angeles dispensaries represented by Local 770.

The recruitment flyer included an online link and a quick response code to the survey for workers to easily access the survey through a mobile device. The recruitment flyer included an invitation to participate in an additional interview. The majority of recruitment occurred at shops as I explained the study to workers, and they volunteered to participate. Interview participants were recruited through snowball sampling. Each interview participant was provided a consent form, was explained the objectives of the study, and agreed to have their interview digitally recorded. Participants were assured that no identifiable information would be collected and any identifiable information that may have been mentioned throughout the interview was redacted from the transcript.Each interview took between 40 and 60 minutes and occurred at a location of the interviewee’s choosing . Each participant was compensated for their time with a 15-dollar gift card. In total, seven participants were interviewed as a part of this study. The interview protocol included providing participants with a copy of the interview questions so that they could follow along with the line of questions. In addition to interview questions, participants were provided with a formal definition of workplace violence and sexual harassment in order to establish a common understanding of the terms I would be using throughout the interview. Interviewees were first asked to explain their regular workday and their work responsibilities as well as their employment tenure in cannabis. They were then asked about sexual harassment in their workplace, if they had experienced, witnessed or heard about instances through word-of-mouth. They were also asked to explain the protocols of their workplace aimed at preventing harassment and protecting workers who seek redress. In an effort to be mindful of discussing the sensitive topic of sexual harassment, the questions focused more on factors leading up to harassment and the actions taken by workers, co-workers and their management as a result of such events. Finally, workers were also asked to describe interventions they would like to see implemented in their workplace to address harassment.

Throughout data collection, questions were added, removed, and re-written based on feedback from participants. Survey participants completed the survey on their mobile device or self-administered it in-person with a tablet. While visiting stores for recruitment, interested workers could take the survey on tablets provided by Local 770. Once the study was complete, all data collected, except for the city of employment variable, were made available to UFCW with additional information and recommendations on how they may better support members of their cannabis division. The final sample for the survey was 117 participants. All data were collected between October 2019 – February 2020.The survey instrument consisted of 37 questions designed to take no more than seven minutes to complete. The first section included questions on workplace city, duration of employment in the current workplace and total employment experience in the cannabis industry. The second section asked about sexual harassment policies in the workplace followed by questions regarding experiences with sexual harassment , perpetuators, and responses . The fourth section asked workers to select, from a list of examples, interventions they believed could be implanted to prevent or better handle instances of harassment in their workplace. The fifth and concluding section included basic demographic questions .In order to capture sexual harassment in the workplace, I adopted nine questions from Fitzgerald and colleague’s Sexual Experiences Questionnaire – Department of Defense Items . The SEQ-Dod was originally developed to measure sexual harassment of in the Armed Forces but has also frequently been adopted to capture harassment in the workplace . The original 24-item measures four dimensions of sexual harassment: sexist hostility, sexual hostility, unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion. As defined by Fitzgerald , sexist hostility is defined as gender-based harassment, sexual hostility is also a form of gender-based harassment but involves behaviors that are more overtly sexual in nature, unwanted sexual attention is characterized by attention and behaviors that are unprompted and unreciprocated by the receiver, and lastly sexual coercion is more explicitly extortionist in nature and considered quid pro quo harassment. The tool has also since been shortened to capture the original four dimensions of sexual harassment in 16 questions . For this study,4×8 tray grow only the first three dimensions of sexual harassment were measured. The version of survey specifically adopted for this study was from the National Park Service’s Work Environment Survey as their study addressed shortcomings of the original tools including issues of recall bias and a lack of examples which constitute sexual harassment . All survey participants responded to 12 different questions of sexual harassment behaviors . Participants indicated how often they experienced the behavior in the last 12 months using a 6-point scale ranging from never , “once” , “once or less a month” , “2-3 times a month” , “once a week or more” , “to once or more times a day” . Because the 12 questions were adopted from the original instrument, a reliability analysis conducted to determine if the 12 items were interrelated produced a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.88, indicating good internal consistency. The Cronbach alphas for the three sub-scales of sexist hostility, sexual hostility, unwanted sexual attention were 0.88, 0.84, and 0.36, respectively.

Consistent with the scoring used in the WES report , responses to these questions were summed and averaged across items to determine a sexual harassment score per sub-scale. Sexual harassment scores ranged from one to five; the greater the sexual harassment score, the greater frequency of harassment experienced by a worker. Prevalence of specific dimensions or behaviors of harassment among respondents was calculated by the percentage of respondents who reported experiencing an example of harassment at least once. The greater the percentage, the more employees experienced either a specific dimension or behaviors of sexual harassment. Respondents who answered experiencing sexual harassment at least once in their workplace were asked to report who had sexually harassment them. Options included a fellow employee , subordinate, manager, customer and other or an unknown individual. The five possible options were coded as separate dichotomous variables and scored as one if selected and zero if left blank. Participants were also asked if they had ever experienced sexual harassment by someone of the same gender. Responses options were “yes” , “no” , and “unsure” . To gauge awareness of sexual harassment policies, a question was adopted from UFCW’s questionnaire on sexual harassment in the workplace. The survey provided by UFCW was originally designed for their grocery worker division and was intended to capture worker’s knowledge of workplace policies protecting them against sexual harassment as well as the impact of sexual harassment on employee work schedules. Respondents were asked if they were aware of their retail company’s policies regarding sexual harassment. They either responded “yes” or “no” . If they responded “yes,” they were further asked to select specific policies that applied to their workplace from a list of six examples . All examples were coded as dichotomous variables. If selected, the item was coded as a one, and if left blank, the item was coded as zero. A response score ranging from one to six was calculated by summing the responses to all six items. A larger score equates to workers having a greater awareness of policies in the workplace to protect them against sexual harassment. The Cronbach alpha for these six items was 0.83, indicating good internal consistency. As part the translational nature of the project, respondents were asked if they wanted more support in their workplace to protect workers against sexual harassment. This item as also adopted from UFCW’s questionnaire. If respondents selected “yes” , they were asked to indicate which actions, from a list of seven examples, they would like to see taken in their workplace to address the issue of sexual harassment . Respondents were asked to choose all options they felt were applicable to their workplace. All seven options were converted into a dichotomized variable and scored as one if the option was selected and zero if left unselected. An intervention score was created by the summing responses to seven options. This data will be especially beneficial to informing the union how they may better service their members.Covariates included in my analysis include the age of workers, their race/ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation and employment status. Age was treated as a continuous variable in analysis. Respondents provided their race and ethnicity by selecting from the six provided categories, all the options they felt best applied to their identity. A seventh option for “other” was provided if they wanted to write in their response. Responses for race/ethnicity were first categorized into seven levels: White, Black, Asian, Latina/o, Asian, Native American, Hawaiian or Pacific Islander and other.