Flower Worker Justice Project

This project supports the basic rights of and economic justice for flower workers in Latin America producing for the U.S. market. Most flowers sold in the U.S. are grown in Colombia and Ecuador, where workers are paid poverty level wages, work long hours before key holidays like Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, and whose largely female workforce is exposed to unhealthy pesticides.

USLEAP flower worker support has focused on flower workers in Colombia who have been fighting to establish democratic unions and win contracts to improve wages and working conditions and gain respect and dignity. USLEAP’s work has included strategic planning with flower worker unions, a campaign versus the Dole Fresh Flowers (the largest exporter of flowers from Latin America to the U.S. until it sold its operations in 2008), worker tours to the U.S., delegations to Colombia, and media work. USLEAP has worked primarily with Untraflores, an industry-wide industrial union in Colombia that is vigorously opposed by the Colombian flower industry, Asocoflores, and with the Casa de los y las Trabajadores de las Flores, a project of the CUT until 2011.

On flower campaigns and initiatives, USLEAP has collaborated closely with the Flower Workers Committee and Jobs with Justice in Miami (the primary port of entry for flowers from Latin America) and the International Labor Rights Forum.