Valentine’s Day: Labor Conditions at US-Owned Plantations Show Hidden Realities of Flower Industry

Today is Valentine's Day. Chocolate, flowers, diamonds. How can gifts that bring so much happiness have come from so much pain? ? Those lovely flowers you received - they were probably genetically engineered and grown in Colombia on a giant pesticide-soaked factory farm run by U.S.-owned Dole Foods. How about the chocolate? Well, over 40 percent of the world’s cocoa comes from the Ivory Coast, in West Africa, where the child labor and child slavery is widespread. And diamonds? They are a girl’s best friend. And they have been used to finance some of the most brutal warfare of the last two decades. Valentine’s Day. What’s not to like? Our guests today will give you all the unlovely details.

We start by looking at the flower industry. Why should US consumers care where their flowers are cut? Well, according to a new report approximately 60 percent of all flowers sold in the United States come from Colombia. A third of Ecuador’s yearly production is exported to the U.S. for Valentine’s Day. Flower workers in these countries earn poverty-level wages, work long hours, and suffer significant health problems due to pesticides. The report also finds that over half of women workers in the flower industry in Colombia and Ecuador have been subjected to sexual harassment.

Dole is the largest exporter of flowers in Latin America. Its largest flower plantation in Colombia is currently the site of a growing worker’s struggle. Over the weekend, Dole fired almost 200 flower workers from the plantation. Nora Ferm is Program Director at International Labor Rights Fund. She is the co-author of “A Valentine’s Day Report.” She joins us from Washington DC. And with Nora - is Beatriz Fuentes, President of Sintrasplendor Union, which is located at Dole’s largest flower plantation in Colombia.

* Nora Ferm. Program Director at International Labor Rights Fund. Co-author of “A Valentine’s Day Report: Worker Justice and Basic Rights on Flower Plantations in Colombia and Ecuador.”

* Beatriz Fuentes. President of Sintrasplendor Union in Colombia. She has worked nine years in Colombian rose plantations and is in the US to publicize the issues facing women workers in Colombia’s flower industry.

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http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/14/1646235