Colombian Flower Workers: Low Wages Long Hours
Channel: International Labor Rights Forum
Date: 2012-05-11

Colombia is the second largest flower exporter, after the Netherlands, with $1.245 billion in flower exports last year. The majority of these exports are destined for the United States. 65% of workers in the Colombian flower industry are female. They suffer from poor health and safety standards, low wages, and repression of any attempt to organize. Most of these women are heads of household who have to leave their children alone during their long work days. The children are severely affected, their dreams frustrated. 

Colombia is notorious for worker rights violations, with more trade unionists murdered in Colombia every year than any other country in the world. The Colombian government has promised to respect workers' rights as a condition for entering into a new Free Trade Agreement with the U.S., passed by the U.S. Congress in October 2011. It signed a Labor Action Plan in April 2011 that addressed violence and impunity and recognized that the flower sector requires special attention to ensure compliance with the law and respect for worker rights.  Although workers' rights advocates and unions consider the Plan inadequate, the Colombian government should achieve the objectives of the Plan before the Obama Administration implements the Free Trade Agreement with Colombia.  One major source of violations in the flower sector are employers who evade the legally-required benefits and basic rights by treating permanent employees as short-term workers, using a variety of practices including subcontractors, temporary agencies, and "cooperatives." Under the Labor Action Plan, the Colombian government agreed to hire hundreds of more labor inspectors and reform its laws and practices to address this problem.  The flower sector is only one of many sectors where worker rights are violated.

This video clip, filmed in Savanna, Bogotá, Colombia, is a production of Corporacion Cactus with the support of International Labor Rights Forum (www.laborrights.org). Directed by Leonardo Luna, editing and camera work by Tocarema Hector and Helbert Ruiz, and music by Fabian Mariño "Natas." Thanks go to the Manablanca Educational Institution, Work and Action Corporation, and all of the people and institutions that made possible the production of this documentary. Special thanks go to the children who participated.