CLUW Highlights National Women’s Health Week
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Mothers always look out for their family’s health. During National Women’s Health Week May 10-16, you can encourage Mom to make sure she is healthy, too.
National Health Week is a weeklong health observance coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health. The nationwide “It’s Your Time” initiative encourages women to take simple steps for longer, healthier lives.
As part of its campaign to raise awareness about how to prevent cervical cancer, the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) is working with other community and women’s groups during National Women’s Health Week to educate women about steps they can take to improve their physical and mental health and lower their risks of certain diseases, particularly cervical cancer.
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).
Show Your Love for Working Mothers this Mother’s Day
Mother’s Day, May 10, is one of the biggest days in the year for flower sales. Yet thousands of women who pick most of the flowers, many of them mothers themselves, will be working in egregious conditions for poverty wages.
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 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 Mother’s Day, U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project (USLEAP), an advocacy group promoting labor rights in Latin America, is bringing the story of the Colombian flower workers to American consumers. Along with the International Labor Rights Forum and Jobs with Justice in South Florida, USLEAP is sponsoring “A Mother’s Day Story” tour. Amanda Camacho, a Colombian flower worker and union leader, is touring various cities in this country to raise awareness about labor rights violations in the cut-flower industry, especially during high-selling seasons like Mother’s Day.
