Colombian Workers Pay High Price for Flowers
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This Mother’s Day, remember the mothers in Colombia who grew, cut and trimmed the flowers you receive. Six days a week, Amanda Camacho and thousands of her co-workers at flower plantations in Colombia cut and trim at least 350 flowers an hour. In the weeks before holidays like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, the work extends deep into the night—all for about $8 a day, less than the cost of a bouquet of carnations in the United States.
Speaking today at a brown bag luncheon at the AFL-CIO in Washington, Camacho, a Colombian union leader and activist, said the mostly female flower workers in Colombia are treated like slaves and the flower companies’ claims that they are treating their workers well are simply “lies.’
Camacho begins a national tour next week sponsored by the International Labor Rights Forum’s (ILRF) Fairness in Flowers campaign, Jobs with Justice (JwJ), the Coalition of Labor Union Women and U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project (USLEAP).
