Flower Industry Workers
oread daily - 14.02.2002 23:13
In English, sorry
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY???
If you got roses today, spare a thought for the Kenyan laborer who might well have picked it. Kenya is the leading flower exporter to the European Union, providing 25 percent of imports to the bloc. Some Kenyan blossoms are delivered to Asia, Australia, and the United States. "It doesn´t mean peace, it doesn´t mean love, it means more pain for the flower workers,´´ said Kathini Maloba, general-secretary of the Kenya Women Workers Organization, a pressure group. "We want to give a wake up call to farm employers that things are not right," said Maloba. The Kenya Human Rights Commission, accuses big farmers of paying a pittance, exposing their workers to toxins, and damaging the environment in their hunger for profit. Activists accuse the industry farms clustered around picturesque Lake Naivasha in central Kenya of polluting the water with fertilizers and pesticides, threatening the delicate ecological balance of an area home to hippos and spectacular bird life. The Commission says some farms pay employees as little as $25 a month, women are subjected to sexual harassment by supervisors, and 90 percent of workers are not members of unions that could help protect them. Some workers complain that exposure to chemicals has brought on skin rashes or worse afflictions, saying those who speak out are threatened with dismissal. "It´s total exploitation. Most of the workers are women, most of them are divorcées and single mothers. They have to be exploited just to feed their families," said Eunice Muthoni, a monitor for the Kenya Human Rights Commission. "They know that if they are sacked tomorrow there are others who will take their job," she said. The floriculture in Kenya is largely in the hands of foreign investors, including the British-Dutch multinational Unilever. This means that a large part of the profits is pumped back into the Netherlands and Great Britain, leaving the Kenyans with the ecological problems.
Colombia is the world’s second largest exporter of flowers and flower production is a mainstay of the economy. Workers are hired through temporary employment agencies for up to six months. It’s back-breaking work and the hours are long – well in excess of the legal eight-hour daily limit. Workers are exposed to pesticides, abrupt temperature changes, and have to bend constantly. Pregnant women do not receive adequate protection or any special treatment. There are no trades unions in this sector. If workers organize, or if a worker is sick or pregnant, they are dismissed.
In India authorities are doing all they can to stimulate the growing business of flowers. A growth percentage of 30% is being mentioned. India hopes to get its share of the growing demand for cut flowers in the world. This trade is considered a goldmine and a panacea for India´s economic and social problems. The flower trade is said to create plenty of employment opportunity. Moreover, the export of cut flowers would earn a great deal of foreign currency. But there is another side to this development. Seldom discussed is the story about pesticides, pollution of water and soil, about bad labor conditions and sick laborers. The artificial cultivation of flowers in greenhouses is said to be the most polluting agricultural activity humanity ever created. The Indian government spends many subsidies on the export flowers. But the profit from this investment is dubious. It is the Dutch entrepreneurs who profit from the Indian flower industry. The Indian workers on the other hand are the victims: they have to do hazardous work in greenhouses for moderate wages and without any social security. The wages in the greenhouses are poor even by Indian standards: between 0.75 to 1 dollar per day. Moreover the fringe benefits are very bad: the workers do not get the holidays and bonuses that are provided for in other sectors of industry. Added to this they run big health risks. Protective clothing is lacking or is insufficient. The workers get hardly any or no information about or training in how to handle hazardous pesticides. Pesticides are used which the WHO classifies as ´extremely dangerous´ or ´highly dangerous´. The waiting times after spraying prescribed by the WHO are not observed.
Anyway, enjoy your flowers.
Sources: BBC, ENN, Reuters, India Committee of The Netherlands, Oxfam
The Oread Daily provides daily (Monday-Friday) progressive, left, anti-racist, anarchist, commie, activist, environmental, Marxist, revolutionary, etc. news and information from around the US and around the world. The Oread Daily was a mimeographed sheet that came out first in the summer of 1970 in Lawrence, Kansas. It was irreverent, radical, spicy, revolutionary et. al. Now, three decades later it returns. To view the entire Oread Daily, please visit:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OreadDaily
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