Photo by Juan Arredondo
This article originally appeared on VICE.Lorena never wanted to work in the cut-flower industry. But when she gave birth to the first of two daughters at the age of 19, she understood she needed the money. In the region of Colombia where Lorena has spent her entire life â known as the BogotĂĄ Savanna â cut flowers are king. âThereâs no other work, no other industry here,â she told me when I visited her this spring. As a single mother, Lorena had few alternatives but to enter the vast farms and factories, where she cut, trimmed, and arranged carnations, alstroemerias, and roses for export to flower-hungry US consumers.Almost 20 years later, Lorenaâs two daughters have managed to avoid working with flowers â one is a student, and the other does missionary work â but Lorena still works in the same plantations, pulling a minimum-wage salary of $333 per month. Years of difficult and dangerous work have wracked Lorenaâs body, leaving debilitating injuries in their wake. Lorena traded her youth and health to support her family. âI donât want the same for my daughters,â she told me.The National Retail Federation estimates that this Motherâs Day weekend, Americans will purchase more than $2 billion worth of flowers. Almost 80 percent of those flowers come from Colombia, where impoverished mothers like Lorena toil long hours to produce tokens of affection for more fortunate mothers elsewhere. While the provenance of the peonies we buy last minute at gas stations, supermarkets, and corner store bodegas remains a mystery for most Americans, for the women that produce these bouquets the cut-flower industry is a harrowing reality, and Motherâs Day is a cruel joke.Colombia may finally do something about acid attacks on women. Read more here.Work in the cut-flower industry is notoriously dangerous. Flowers are fickle and sensitive to pests and disease. To protect their investments, companies pump highly toxic pesticides and fungicides into the greenhouses where flowers are grown. Twenty percent of these chemicals are so toxic and carcinogenic that theyâre prohibited in North America and Europe. As a result, workers often suffer from rashes, headaches, impaired vision, and skin discoloration. Women, who make up 70 percent of the cut flower workforce in Colombia, report substantially higher instances of birth defects and miscarriages.In the high season between Valentineâs Day and the summer wedding season, work conditions deteriorate as companies cut corners and rush to get their flowers to market. During these months, women oftentimes wake at three of four in the morning in order to finish chores and prepare meals for their families. By dawn, they are already at the plantation, where a workday can last from 16 to 20 hours. After a few hours of rest, the marathon starts over again.Colombia's busiest port is dominated by drug violence. But citizens have now had enough of paying out protection money. Read more here.In early March, I traveled to FacatativĂĄ, Colombia, to meet Lorena and others workers responsible for our Motherâs Day bouquets. Located an hour and a half outside BogotĂĄ, FacatativĂĄ is a sprawling, dusty city that sits in the heart of the Savanna. Thousands of acres of flower farms, blanketed under gray plastic tarps, stretch from the cityâs borders like spider webs.When I met Lorena in front of her home, she was visibly nervous. If her employer found out that sheâd spoken out against the industry, she said, there could be serious consequences. Just over five feet tall, Lorena has the petite build of a young girl. But her body, she laments, has been broken by countless hours of huddling over flower beds, trimming stem after stem. Years of cutting, bunching, and arranging bouquets in massive factories. She rattles off a list of injuries: tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, a spinal column disability, a torn rotator cuff. Though the company provides minimal health care, Lorena has to fight to see a doctor. âEvery time I go they say there are people with more serious problems, and they push me to the back of the line.âDoes the company where she works offer any precautions to protect her and her colleagues from the dangerous pesticides sprayed on the flowers? âYes, they give us masks and gloves,â she told me as we sat in the living room of her cinder-block home. âBut you can still feel it on you when you come home. Whenever anyone falls sick, the company investigates it thoroughly, attempting to shift the responsibility from the company to the workers.â Lorena recounted the story of a co-worker whoâd recently collapsed in the middle of his shift, his face turning purple. âThe company says that it was just a heart attack. But thereâs a rumor that heâd succumbed to the chemical sprays.âGiven the arduous conditions I asked why she continued to work in the industry. Lorena nodded toward her daughter, flitting between other parts of the house. âThe most important thing,â she said, âis to have a home for my family.âA week later, I attended a meeting to discuss the role of women and labor rights within the industry. âWhat weâre looking for is to form and organize the flower workers' sector,â Beatriz Fuentes, one of the eventâs organizers, told me afterward. Fuentes worked for years in the cut-rose plantations before becoming a union leader.âWomen are chosen to work in the flower industry because they have agile hands â they can go through the motions smoother and more efficiently,â Fuentes explained. âTheir hands aren't as heavy, and so they can manage the flowers and arrange the bouquets faster.âBut in exchange, theyâre often taken advantage of. âWomen are regularly paid less than men for the same jobs,â Fuentes said. Because of limited alternative employment â Colombia regularly has the highest unemployment rate in Latin America â female workers are hesitant to assert their rights. Companies commonly require female employees to take pregnancy tests in order to weed out workers who might be eligible for maternity leave. A 2008 International Labor Rights Forum report suggested that more than half of all women in the industry have suffered from sexual harassment.âColombiaâs Deadliest Cityâ is fighting back against gang extortion. Read more here.As the meeting wound down, I struck up a conversation with Alejandra and her husband, Carlos. Between the two of them, theyâve spent almost 50 years on the plantations. Like Lorena, both Carlos and Alejandra have torn rotator cuffsâCarlos in both arms. Because of her injury, Alejandra can no longer work. Carlos, only 53, walks with a cane. He can only work sitting down.The next day, I came to their home for a cup of coffee. The couple have two daughters â Camila, whoâs just a child, and Mariana, whoâs of high school age. Mariana wants to escape the industry and go to college in BogotĂĄ, but the family canât afford the $5 it costs for her to travel to the capital and back each day. Now sheâs picking up spare shifts on the plantation.Carlos and Alejandra are involved in an effort to unionize flower workers for better conditions. Itâs an uphill battle, they say. Increasingly, companies are veering away from permanent employees in favor of temporary, three-month contracts brokered by employment agencies. Known as tercerizaciĂłn (or third-party hiring), the practice is illegal but rampant.âWith an indefinite contract, you have much more security â I can plan on taking care of my family,â Carlos said. Unlike the younger generation of hires, he still has a permanent contract. âIf my job wants to get rid of me, they need to do it for a just cause, like showing up to work drunk. But with these temporary contracts, they can work you to the bone and toss you aside.âCarlos called his 25-year-old neighbor, SofĂa, to come over and testify to life as a temporary contractor. âIn the farm where I work,â SofĂa said, âno one works for the company â everyone works on contract. The companies keep track of whether weâre good or bad workers. If youâre bad, they wonât hire you. And if youâre part of a union, they wonât hire you either.âWithout stronger labor rights and greater visibility, Carlos and Alejandra believe the conditions in the cut-flower industry are unlikely to improve. Meanwhile, the backbreaking work and long hours are having a destructive ripple effect throughout the community.âThere are so many mothers in this industry who have to work all day and canât take care of their children,â Alejandra told me, her young daughter cradled on her lap. âKids go to school and get out at 1 or 2 in the afternoon, and their parents donât come home until 1 in the morning. So what do these kids do during that time? How can our kids grow up and be cared for when their parents are gone?ââIn the United States,â Carlos added, âpeople love flowers. But they have no idea what goes on here. A husband might give his wife a bouquet of flowers, and itâs a beautiful gesture. But he doesnât know about the pain it took to get it there. People in the United States just donât think about all this.âFollow Michael Zelenko on Twitter: @mvzelenks
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