Flower Worker Mother’s Day Card Shows You Care About Rights of All Mothers

– by James Parks

Mother’s Day is one of the biggest days in the year for flower sales. But the thousands of women who pick most of the flowers we give proudly to our mothers will not enjoy that day.

More than 60 percent of the flowers sold in the United States come from Colombia. Two-thirds of the nearly 100,000 flower workers in Colombia are women, many of them working mothers. They often are required to work 12-to-15-hour days with few breaks, especially in the weeks before holidays like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. As a result, many have been injured on the job and suffer health problems related to overexposure to pesticides and humiliating and degrading treatment by management. All for poverty-level wages.   

This year, U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project (USLEAP), an advocacy group promoting labor rights in Latin America, has come up with a way you can support the flower workers in Colombia and give your mother a great gift.

Instead of giving your mother chocolates or flowers again this year, make a donation in her name to support the basic rights of working mothers in Latin America. USLEAP has designed two Mother’s Day cards, each featuring a photo of a Colombian flower worker and her child. In exchange for a $25 donation to USLEAP’s Flower Worker Economic Justice Campaign, your mother will receive a card in the mail, with a personalized message from you inside. On the back of the card, she can read about women who work in the flower industry in Colombia, which ships nearly all of its flowers to the United States.

Sending this card will say to your mother that you care about her, but also that you careabout the rights of all mothers. Click here to order your USLEAP Mother’s Day Card andhere to learn more about USLEAP’s flower campaign.   

The largest grower and exporter of flowers from Colombia is Dole Fresh Flowers. Workers at two of Dole’s flower plantations formed the Sintrasplendor and Untrafragancia unions in 2004 and 2005. But the company has refused to negotiate collective bargaining agreements with these unions and instead has negotiated a “sweetheart” deal with a company union that gives almost no benefits to the workers. Dole also has launched anti-union campaigns that included closing its largest flower plantation after a two-year effort by workers there to form a union. 

Just before Valentine’s Day this year, we noted that 11 national religious leaders sent a message to Dole Fresh Flowers: “Deal justly with your Colombian flower workers.” In a letter to Dole CEO David DeLorenzo, the religious leaders said: 

People of faith in the U.S. are increasingly convinced that our companies should be expected to uphold moral standards with workers in operations abroad. We hope that you will uphold your image as a socially responsible company by negotiating in good faith and signing fair contracts with the independent unions at your flower plantations as soon as possible.