Creating a Sweatfree World    Fairness in Flowers

Fairness in Flowers

ILRF's Fairness in Flowers Campaign has promoted the occupational health and safety and the labor rights of workers in the cut flower industries of Colombia and Ecuador since 2003. Most of the roses and carnations produced in these countries are exported to the United States where they are sold in florist shops, supermarkets, and on online retail sites. There are 40,000 flower workers in Ecuador and over 100,000 in Colombia, working to grow, harvest, and package these flowers.

These workers routinely experience a number of labor rights violations, including:

VIOLATIONS OF THE RIGHT TO ORGANIZE
Workers are prevented from organizing independent unions through tactics such as illegal firings, threats to close plantations where workers are organizing, and black-listing unionists. Third-party contracting practices also severely limit freedom of association. The subcontracted workers are shuffled between different companies every few months so that their employers can avoid having to affiliate them with social security; a constantly changing workforce also inhibits serious attempts at organizing. Of the hundreds of flower companies located in Ecuador, only two have unions. And in Colombia, the most important worker organizing effort in years is being crushed by the country's largest flower owner and exporter, U.S.-based Dole (more information below).

SEXUAL HARASSMENT
A 2005 study by ILRF and Ecuadorian NGO partners [in RFWW folder Ecuador] found that over 55% of Ecuadorian flower workers have been the victims of sexual harassment. Many women said that they had been asked out by their bosses or supervisors, who offered to improve their jobs in exchange. Alarmingly, we also learned that 19% of flower workers had been forced to have sex with a coworker or superior and 10% had been sexually attacked.

FORCED PREGNANCY TESTING
About 65% of Colombian flower workers and 50% of Ecuadorian flower workers are women. They are commonly required to take a pregnancy test or show proof of sterilization as a condition for hiring, as employers hope to avoid providing paid maternity leave.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY
Use of toxic pesticides and fungicides has caused work-related health problems—including skin rashes, respiratory problems, eye problems, and miscarriages—affecting over half of Ecuadorian and Colombian flower workers. An Oxfam report from 2004 reports that Ecuadorian flower companies use more than 30 different pesticides, and an ILO survey found that only 22% of Ecuadorian flower companies trained their workers in the use of chemicals. In Colombia, according to the Victoria International Development Education Association, doctors in flower-producing regions report up to 5 cases of acute poisoning per day, and a study by the Colombian National Institute of Health found an elevated rate of miscarriages, premature births, and congenital malformations among flower workers.

CHILD LABOR
While child labor has been successfully eradicated in Colombian flower plantations in recent years, it remains a serious problem in Ecuador. Pesticide exposure affects children more severely than adults. The ILO estimates that 20% of the 60,000 Ecuadorian flower workers are children.

Dole Foods

Dole is the only multinational company that owns flower farms in Colombia. In late 2004, workers founded a new union, Sintrasplendor, at Splendor Flowers; this was the first independent union that had been successfully established in a Dole-owned flower company in Colombia. When Sintrasplendor received its registration from the Ministry of Social Protection, the company presented a list of objections, asking the Ministry to revoke the registration. Splendor Flowers used various forms of persecution against Sintrasplendor, including threats that union affiliates will be fired; assigning extra work on days when the union has planned assemblies and other activities; and hostility, including via the presence of members of the Armed Forces and police at union activities held off company property. The company successfully convinced the Ministry to revoke the union's registration, but after a lengthy appeal the workers reinstated the union.

Dole has also used a variety of ploys to deny Sintrasplendor its right to a collective bargaining agreement, such as signing a different collective bargaining agreement with the company-backed union, and refusing to support a fair process to determine union representation at the company. On October 12, 2006, in its final blow against the union, Dole announced that it is closing the Corzo farm at Splendor Flowers

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