Dutch flowers = Israeli flowers
''' - 06.05.2004 14:48
International flower trade is based on discrimination and exploitation, in Europe, Africa and the Occupied Territories.
The VBA flower auction at Aalsmeer, near Schiphol airport, is the world’s largest. It is not just an auction, but the most important processing and logistics centre for the global flower trade, and it coordinates the Dutch flower sector. Thousands of people work directly for the auction, probably tens of thousands work for the firms located in the complex.
For years, the sector has been dependent on immigrant labour - to grow, pack and process the flowers. In recent years that came mainly from eastern Europe, in addition to illegal or ‘visa-expired’ Turkish and Moroccan immigrants. The east Europeans were usually illegally working, on a tourist visa for instance. Sometimes employers evade immigration controls, for instance by sub-contracting to a Bulgarian or Polish employment agency. Police and immigration authorities generally turn a blind eye, because of the economic importance of the sector. However, the illegal workers are at the mercy of the employers: the going rate is about half the legal minimum wage, and they are not insured.
At managerial and Board level, VBA Aalsmeer reflects nothing of the labour force. Discrimination is illegal, but some barrier seems to exclude any of the immigrant labour (or their children) from the better jobs. In terms of the ethnic gap between the managers and the workforce, and the number of people affected, VBA is one of the most racist employers in the country. (Schiphol airport itself is worse). And they don’t seem to see anything wrong with it either. When asked to comment, on why there are no ethnic minorities on the board, a spokeswoman replied: “Well, there are no women either”.
There is one exception to the ethnic-Dutch composition of the managers and Board. VBA is legally a growers co-operative, with regional sub-sections, which have their own managing committees. Most are flower-growing regions in the Netherlands, and there is one committee for Belgium. However the last two committees are for northern and southern Israel. Partly because of Dutch emigrants, there are strong links between the horticultural sector in both countries. And just as in the Netherlands, Israeli growers are dependent on another ethnic group to do the work, in this case Palestinians from the occupied territory. (The days when Jewish settlers worked the land with their own hands are long gone). Needless to say, these workers are totally unrepresented in the Aalsmeer management. No-one - certainly not Dutch trade unions - cares what they earn, or what their labour conditions are like. Their pass, which they need to cross into Israeli territory, can be withdrawn at any time, for any reason - leaving them vulnerable to exploitation.
One other source of ‘Dutch flowers’ is unrepresented - the growers who shifted their operations to Uganda and Kenya. There too, they run their farms like a colonial plantation: the boss is white, the labour is African. Cheap labour, water, and sunshine were the reasons to move to East Africa: the only disadvantage is that the flowers must be air-freighted back to Aalsmeer for auction and re-export.
‘Dutch flowers’ have a positive image all over Europe. Most people don’t realise the exploitation and discrimination that characterise the sector. And they don’t realise that the flowers may not be from the Netherlands at all. They might have been grown by exploited Palestinians in an Israeli settlement on the West Bank, or they might have been grown by exploited Ugandans. If they are genuinely from Holland, might have been grown by exploited Bulgarians.
But it’s very unlikely that they were grown or processed by someone who was paid a fair wage under healthy conditions, someone who was respected and not discriminated by the employer, someone who was at least represented in the management of the business. Given a free choice and an alternative job, most of the labour in the sector would simply walk away, and leave the global flower trade to collapse.
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