Flower Worker Campaigns and Initiatives

Note: USLEAP Flower Worker Justice Campaign work was extensive between 2005 and 2010; since 2011, there have been limited requests from flower workers for support and intervention but that could change at any time.

The Dole Flower Worker Justice Campaign: Industry Overview and Analysis of Dole (Valentine's Day Report, 2007)

The largest grower and exporter of flowers from Colombia has been Dole, which has also been the largest exporter of flowers from Latin America to the U.S.  NOTE:  In February 2009, Dole sold its Latin American flower operations.  The Dole Flower Worker Justice Camapign is over but the Dole Global Campaign, below, continues.  

Background:  Workers at Dole’s largest flower plantation in Colombia began organizing in November 2004 to fight for better wages and working conditions.  After a two-year struggle against Dole’s anti-union actions, the company announced in October 2006 that it would close the plantation in 2007.  Dole has refused to provide evidence to justify the closing on economic terms. USLEAP and others consider the closing an anti-union shutdown. Workers at a second Dole plantation in Colombia, Fragancia, report that the company has used the same tactics as at Splendor. 

Workers at both plantations brought their long struggles with the company to a close in July 2008 when Dole and the unions signed collective bargaining agreements.  Ensuring that the new owner respects these contracts is a high priority for 2009.  2011 Update:  The new owner, FlorAmerica/Sunburst initially respected the contract but shut down the remaining Splendor plantation in late 2010, leaving workers unpaid.  Splendor workers eventually won back-pay and severance in June 2011 following 200 days of protests.

Read about the Splendor flower worker campaign (2004-2007), at the time the most important worker organizing effort in the Colombian flower sector in years. In 2006, Dole abruptly closed most of the Splendor plantation operations and dismissed the majority of the workers who had been organizing to form an independent union for two years.  In 2008 workers eventually won contracts at the remaining Splendor operation and at the Fragancia plantation, the only two independent union contracts in the Colombian flower sector at that time.

The Dole Global Campaign 

Dole’s denial of worker rights in the flower and banana sectors prompted a global campaign against the company that began in 2006.  USLEAP has joined with dozens of other organizations in denouncing Dole and urging it to make a commitment “in practice” to respect the basic rights of workers.

Bochica Farms (2007-2008)

Workers at this flower plantation formed the only existing flower union in the region of Antioquia, Colombia in January 2007.  Within days, they faced illegal firings, intimidation from management, and death threats from paramilitaries in the region.  The remaining union members continued their struggle for over a year in spite of these obstacles, but the union was finally destroyed in July 2008 when the company replaced the workers with temporary workers.

USLEAP's Flower Worker Economic Justice Project has been supported in part by the Berger-Marks Foundation.