Flower Worker Mother’s Day Card Shows You Care About Rights of All Mothers

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/04/17/flower-worker-mothers-day-card-shows-you-care-about-rights-of-all-mothers/

by James Parks, Apr 17, 2008

Mother’s Day is one of the biggest days in the year for flower sales. But the thousands of women who pick most of the flowers we give proudly to our mothers will not enjoy that day.

More than 60 percent of the flowers sold in the United States come from Colombia. Two-thirds of the nearly 100,000 flower workers in Colombia are women, many of them working mothers. They often are required to work 12-to-15-hour days with few breaks, especially in the weeks before holidays like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. As a result, many have been injured on the job and suffer health problems related to overexposure to pesticides and humiliating and degrading treatment by management. All for poverty-level wages.



This year, U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project (USLEAP), an advocacy group promoting labor rights in Latin America, has come up with a way you can support the flower workers in Colombia and give your mother a great gift.

Instead of giving your mother chocolates or flowers again this year, make a donation in her name to support the basic rights of working mothers in Latin America. USLEAP has designed two Mother’s Day cards, each featuring a photo of a Colombian flower worker and her child. In exchange for a $25 donation to USLEAP’s Flower Worker Economic Justice Campaign, your mother will receive a card in the mail, with a personalized message from you inside. On the back of the card, she can read about women who work in the flower industry in Colombia, which ships nearly all of its flowers to the United States.

Sending this card will say to your mother that you care about her, but also that you care about the rights of all mothers. Click here to order your USLEAP Mother’s Day Card and here to learn more about USLEAP’s flower campaign.

FULL story at link.