Expect a hiring boom from the state’s marijuana producers by the end of the year—and a likely boost in union membership.



The law that legalizes recreational marijuana use, which the General Assembly approved Friday, has two distinct features: a quick timeline and clear language that encourages union jobs. Existing players in the state's medical-cannabis market plan to move into the bigger recreational business, resulting in a hiring surge that will dwarf the industry’s initial wave.

“Illinois will have one of the largest adult-use markets in the country,” says Charlie Bachtell, CEO of Cresco Labs, a Chicago-based cannabis company that operates in Illinois and 10 states.

He estimated the Illinois recreational market will be four to eight times the size of the medical-use market in the early going but could eventually grow to 10 to 20 times the size. Existing medical-use sales are on an annual run rate of about $130 million. Estimates of recreational-use revenue in Illinois are $1.6 billion a year.

The state intends to allow retail sales of marijuana to ordinary consumers by Jan. 1. The law allows companies who hold licenses to grow and sell marijuana for medical use to receive expedited licenses to serve the consumer market—if they’re willing to pay to play. Growers would pay $450,000 to $950,000 in fees for licenses that allow them to operate until March 2021. Dispensaries would pay $260,000.



Most of the large existing cannabis companies—Cresco Labs, Green Thumb Industries, Verano Holdings and MedMen, which is buying PharmaCann—say they plan to apply for early-approval licenses and begin staffing up immediately to meet the Jan. 1 launch.

Cresco Labs will double its Illinois headcount from about 300 today, Bachtell said.

“To supply the adult use-market will require significant investment,” said Dina Rollman, GTI’s senior vice president for government and regulatory affairs, though she declined to quantify it. “There will be massive increases in headcount at production facilities and dispensaries. We’ll increase hiring at the facility level and corporate offices.”

One of the challenges will be getting required background checks completed in time. All employees must have background checks by state and federal authorities.

Cresco and MedMen say they expect their employees eventually will be unionized. (MedMen, which is based in Los Angeles, already has workers in California and New York represented by the United Food & Commercial Workers union.)

The Illinois cannabis legislation contains multiple references to labor-peace agreements, which will be part of the selection criteria for applicants for new licenses for distribution centers. The intent of the legislation was clear: “to have good, well-paying union jobs in this industry,” Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch, a Democrat from Westchester, testified just before the vote May 31 in the Illinois House.



However, GTI’s Rollman said it might not be automatic. “Illinois is not the only regulated (cannabis) state . . . to have that type of language in its statute. I haven’t seen other states go union across the board. . . .Just having the language on the books doesn’t instantly translate to unionization.”

Companies already have been stepping up production to meet increased demand from the expansion of Illinois’ medical-use program. But the timetable for recreational use is still short. To begin selling product in January, cultivators will begin growing in September.

“It’s fast, but most of the operators already are in the process of scaling up,” Bachtell said.