[corp-focus] Valentine's Day Sweatshops

[Robert Weissman]

Valentine's Day Sweatshops
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

Before you buy your sweetie those roses for Valentine's Day, pause for a
moment to consider where they come from, and at what cost -- and what
can be done to give a bit more joy not just to the flowers' recipients,
but their producers.

Cut flowers are a highly globalized industry. The majority of cut
flowers sold in the United States are imported, especially from Colombia
and Ecuador. Kenya and Tanzania are the key overseas supplier for Europe.

Here's how the industry looks from the multinational corporate
perspective: "In just a 24-hour period, each stem is cut, packed and
loaded onto a temperature controlled UPS aircraft heading to Miami.
There, they clear customs and are distributed to florists and consumers
across the country. Eighty-seven percent of all cut flower imports
arrive in Miami." UPS reports that it imported more than 14.8 million
stems of cut flowers into the United States last year from South
American countries such as Colombia and Ecuador.

But on the ground in Colombia and Ecuador, things don't look so smoothly
efficient and trouble free.

Olga Tutillo is secretary general of Rosas del Ecuador, a flower workers
union in Ecuador. She has worked at flower plantations for 22 years. She
is 38 years old and has five children.

Tutillo explains how hard the work is for Ecuador's roughly 100,000
flower workers, about 70 percent of whom are women -- the faces behind
Cupid. The International Labor Organization estimates about 20 percent
of the workforce consists of children.

The workers generally earn the national minimum wage, $145 per month.
They work especially long hours in advance of Valentine's Day and other
flower-giving holidays in the United States. They experience major
occupational risks. Back pain is common among those who must stand or
lean all day. Repetitive motion injuries are common. Rose pickers are
frequently cut by thorns.

"There are also problems caused by pesticide fumigation," she explains.
"Fumigation happens every day, either to prevent the plants from getting
different diseases or to deal with it when they do get those diseases.
Some of these chemicals are highly toxic."

Flower workers who try to organize to improve their working conditions
face severe repression.

"It is extremely difficult to unionize in Ecuador," says Tutillo. "The
companies are organized among themselves and they have a list on the
Internet of the people who have tried to unionize or have unionized. If
someone tries to create a union, the company threatens to fire them and
says they won't be able to find another job. These are the famous
blacklists."

Thanks to firings, blacklisting and other tactics -- like increasing use
of contract workers instead of full-fledged employees -- the
unionization rate in Ecuador is depressingly low. Among 300 flower
companies in Ecuador, reports Tutillo, "only four have unions -- the
other attempts to unionize have been repressed."

The story is much the same in Colombia, says Ricardo Zamudio, president
of Cactus, a Colombian organization that conducts research on issues
related to the flower industry.

Workers are trying to organize despite the repression they face. In
Colombian a recent important development has been independent
unionization at one flower company owned by Dole, which altogether
controls 20 percent of Colombia's flower exports. The International
Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) is running a letter-writing campaign to urge
Dole Fresh Flowers and the Colombian-based firm Splendor Flowers to
respect workers' right to unionize <www.laborrights.org>.

Unfortunately, as long as the repression remains intense, consumers have
much more freedom to demand flower justice than do the flower workers.

In Europe, a flower certification program has taken hold that tells
consumers whether flowers were grown on farms or plantations that
respect minimal environmental and labor conditions. According to the
International Labor Organization, a substantial portion of flowers grown
in Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe receive certification under the Flower
Label Program. The flower certification program is no panacea, but it
does help modestly improve environmental and working conditions, and it
gives workers more space to organize.

The program has had much less impact in South America, in considerable
part because the Flower Label Program hasn't taken hold in the United
States, where most Colombian and Ecuadorian flowers are shipped.

Just like with sweatshops, consumer pressure can make a significant
difference in the lives of the flower workers. But the opportunity is in
some ways greater, because of the concentration among both flower
producers and sellers. ILRF is leading the way, trying to galvanize
consumer pressure to force Dole and large cut flower sellers --
Albertson=92s, Safeway, Costco and Wal-Mart, among others -- to pressure
flower suppliers to respect workers' rights to organize, protect
employees' health and safety, and pay overtime wages.

So go ahead and give that rose for Valentine's Day. But be careful of
the thorns -- and to avoid sticking it to the flower workers, support
the ILRF campaign.


Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter, <http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com>. Robert Weissman is
editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor,
<http://www.multinationalmonitor.org>. Mokhiber and Weissman are
co-authors of On the Rampage: Corporate Predators and the Destruction of
Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press).

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

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