Not surprisingly, these are the same industries who historically have high rates of sexual harassment . Between 2000 and 2015, the combination of these industries made up 28% all sexual harassment charges filed to the EEOC . Such industries put employees at greater risk to experience sexual harassment, especially by customers and clients who sexualize workers and feel entitled to their services. Particularly in service sector industries, there is a prevailing belief in the mantra “the customer is always right” that both allows customers to becoming sexually forward without fear of consequences and employees to respond informally to such behavior as to not upset the customer . A study by the Restaurant Opportunities Center found that women employed in restaurants who earn a sub-minimum wage of $2.13 per hour as tipped workers were twice as likely to experience harassment from supervisors, co-workers and customers, compared to women employed in restaurants who received a sub-minimum wages greater than $2.13 per hour . The large reliance on tips creates an environment where workers, particularly women, are undervalued and forced to endure injustices for the sake of their income. Additional risk factors for sexual harassment can be identified at the interpersonal and individual level. At the interpersonal level, working in isolation is also associated with reports of harassment and general workplace violence. Environments in which workers are forced to become isolated from peers gives harassers easy access to targets and leaves workers with fewer chances to interact with others in their environment and signal to others if they are in need of assistance .
Additional interpersonal risk factors in the workplace include power differentials and the abuse of power,bud drying rack discussed in more detail below. Individual risk factors associated with a worker’s vulnerability include gender, sexual orientation and age. As previously mentioned, although anyone can experience sexual harassment, women are most often victimized and thus at greater of risk of experiencing harassment than men . Likewise, studies repeatedly indicate perpetuators are most likely to men. Aside from women, individuals who identify as queer, either in their sexual orientation or gender expression, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender folks also face great risks of experiencing general discrimination and sexual harassment. A meta-analysis of 386 studies on the victimization of LGBT individuals found that approximately of 50% of individuals in all samples experience sexual harassment . Although comparative studies examining rates of sexual harassment between heterosexual and LGBT samples have mixed findings determining effect sizes, they lean towards sexual minorities experiencing greater victimization than heterosexual identifying individuals . In addition to the risks posed by one’s gender and sexual orientation, young and unmarried female workers are most often targeted as victims of sexual harassment . Most service sector employees are relatively young adults between the ages of 15-25 years who face greater risks of harm in the workplace . Because of their age, workers are often unaware of their rights which include a safe work environment that is free of harassment as well as entitlement to fair pay . Consequently, they may not be equipped with the information or tools to formally handle an experience of sexual harassment . Responses and coping mechanisms to sexual harassment are just as critical to understanding the context of harassment in the workplace as are the individual and organizational risk factors that predict harassment among vulnerable workers.
However, while the majority of studies focus on investigating the frequency and prevalence of harassing behaviors, many do not address how workers react to such behavior. According to the USMSP , individual based responses to behaviors can be categorized as active responses , avoidance and toleration . Among the three categories, the top three behaviors employed by federal workers in response to harassment were asking the harasser to stop, avoiding the harasser, and ignoring the behavior or simply doing nothing . The action, or lack there-of, that an employee takes to address sexual harassment is related to multiple levels of influence: the severity of the incident, the power they as an employee hold in their place of work, the social support provided by their workplace and their own cultural profile . Studies investigating coping mechanisms have found strong connections between both the severity and frequency of the harassment to response patterns . For example, engaging in detached behaviors was associated with significantly lower frequency of unwanted sexual attention than engagement in simultaneous avoidance of the behavior and negotiation with the perpetrator , however the direction of this relationship is ambiguous. Studies have also found non-assertive actions to address sexual harassment to be more common if the sexually harassing behavior was not considered to be severe . Workers also opt for non-assertive responses when the source was someone other than a supervisor . This is consistent with previous studies which have found workers do not take action against customers to avoid crossing an ambiguous boundary between providing “good customer service” and protecting themselves . Studies have found that workplaces with few policies in place regarding sexual harassment are associated with passive responses to sexual harassment . This is not surprising given a lack of formal venues for filing complaints. Women whose workplace only employed informal policies for addressing harassment, were also less likely to engage in any form of direct response for similar reasons . Finally, cultural and social factors can influence a worker’s reaction and coping to harassment. The study by Cortina and Wasti found that White women more likely to practice detached behaviors compared to Latina women who practiced avoidant-negotiating behaviors and whose culture is historically more patriarchal and communal.
Despite cultural differences, both styles of coping are ultimately non-confrontational. This general lack of combative action can also be explained by the shame women are socially taught to feel in response to harassment , as well as the responsibility they feel towards protecting the perpetrator .Understanding that sexual harassment is common in the service sector, the current study seeks to shed light on sexual harassment in the context of cannabis dispensaries, a recently legalized industry, within the context of Los Angeles County. With the passage of Proposition 64 during November 2016, the possession, use and retail of recreational marijuana was decriminalized in California through the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act . Beginning in January 2018, California began to issue licenses for the legal operation of medical and adult use cannabis shops, and by the end of year, the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration reported cannabis shops produced $345 million in tax revenue for the state with the highest concentration of shops located in Los Angeles . While there are many studies that focus on cannabis consumers – health outcomes and public safety issues related to the legalization and use of cannabis – little attention has been paid to workers in the industry. The small amount of occupational safety and health literature that does exist regarding the cannabis industry focuses on the biological, chemical, and physical hazards associated with cannabis flower and its production into various cannabis derived products . However, the hazards that affect the safety of cannabis workers extends beyond the flower and stems from the industry’s long and complicated history with sexual abuse. In a 2016 article by Reveal News,vertical grow rack system female trimmers from the Emerald Triangle of Northern California shared stories of sexual abuse including being asked to trim topless and forced to perform sexual acts in order to receive payment . Similarly, in 2019, Vice also published an article documenting unfair work practices within the industry including 10 to 15 hour shifts, and sexual harassment of female bud tenders from shop owners . Until recently, cannabis flourished in the black market where it was produced, cultivated and distributed with little to no formal monitoring or regulation. Given the risks associated with being involved in the cannabis industry prior to legalization, it was a very secretive industry to navigate. The secrecy associated with the industry helped to establish a “culture of silence” against reporting abuses in the workplace, particularly regarding sexual harassment and exploitation . Because of the industry’s history, there is a need to assure that workers entering the business are protected and treated with respect, as with any other workforce. Institutionalized sexism permeates several aspects of the industry and cannabis companies are not exempt for marketing strategies that use sex appeal to sell products. For example, the brand Ignite pairs images of half-naked women with animals, and poorly formed cannabis puns , showcasing the misogyny and harassment that exists within the industry . The sexism which breeds harassment is not only evident through advertising, it is also apparent in hiring practices as women have historically been hired to not only sell product but to simultaneously serve as attractive promotional models for a brand .
Although this is more common in illegal retail fronts known as “trap shops,” it is a distinguishing characteristic of the industry. This in turn has led to accounts from workers describing instances of overtly touchy customers and co-workers as well as instances of their product knowledge being undermined because of their appearance and gender .Although there does exist a report documenting the prevalence of sexual abuse in the cannabis industry published by New Frontier Data, a company whose primary mission is to collect and analyze data relevant to cannabis to better inform businesses and investors, the report is not publicly available to better examine its methodology, study sample, or results . Despite challenges with accessibility, the major findings of the report have been published through cannabis related news outlets and suggest that, of the 1,741 workers in the cannabis industry who participated, there are high levels of workplace violence relative to other industries . Sexual harassment is also a widespread issue in the industry, with nearly 27% of participants reporting they have either witnessed it and 18% reporting they have experienced it themselves . An additional one-third of participants reported that they knew someone who had been sexually harassed in the industry . When filtered to only include responses from female employees working in non-ownership or management positions , the percent of workers who have experienced sexual harassment decreased slightly to 14% . Concurrently, the percentage of those who know of someone who has experienced harassment increase to 49% , indicating the effect of power structures in the likelihood to experience harassment.As the cannabis industry continues to expand within California and across the United States, it is becoming closely intertwined with the labor movement through its growing union representation. Among the many groups that have fought to legalize cannabis, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union was the first union heavily involved in the 2010 campaign for Proposition 19, a previous attempt to legalize the recreational use of cannabis in California. Although the campaign failed, UFCW continued to support the market for cannabis in California and especially in Los Angeles. In 2012, the city of Los Angeles attempted to ban all sales on cannabis. UFCW Local 770 fought the ban in order to protect the jobs of dispensary workers in the city and their efforts resulted in Proposition D, passed in 2013, that protected 135 medical marijuana dispensaries that had earned their licenses before 2007. UFCW continued their efforts to protect jobs in cannabis with their support of the 2016 campaign for MAUCRSA. As part of MAUCRSA, UFCW negotiated labor peace agreements in medical and recreational use laws. The provision deems that any cannabis shop in California with 20 or more workers is allowed the opportunity to join a union . However, despite the labor movement’s progressive ideology that serves to protect workers’ rights, it is important to address the complicated history that labor unions also face with sexual harassment as protecting women’s rights and workers’ rights have not always been advocated for concurrently. For example, during the Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co. class-action lawsuit against workplace sexual harassment, the United Steelworkers Local 6860, responsible for representing the female workers and plaintiffs in the case, was found to be an inadequate source of protection for their female members reporting incessant harassment and abuse from co workers .