I am the president of the Sintrasplendor union, which was founded in November 2004 at the Splendor Flowers plantation in Colombia, a farm belonging the multinational Dole.  I have more than 10 years of experience working in the Colombian cut flower industry.  For Valentine’s Day, the day when more Americans buy cut flowers from Colombia than any other day of the year, I have traveled to the US to share my testimony about the poor working conditions that exist in many Colombian flower plantations, and which I have experienced firsthand over the past decade.

 

My coworkers and I have witnessed the limitations of Colombian labor law enforcement, and voluntary initiatives in addressing these serious labor rights violations. New, enforceable strategies are needed to effectively guarantee workers’ rights in this industry.

 

 

Flower workers are inadequately protected against occupational hazards. In the greenhouses, we are exposed on a daily basis to highly toxic chemicals, without sufficient protection. We are also exposed to extreme temperatures, and we work long hours doing repetitive tasks. These conditions cause serious health problems including allergies, respiratory problems, eye problems, spinal problems, and carpal tunnel syndrome.

 

I have had a problem with carpal tunnel syndrome for the past five years, due to the fact that I have had to spend 8-10 hours straight cutting stems with scissors. Most workers are assigned to one job for several months at a time, frequently causing repetitive motion injuries. Currently, we must trim 300-400 flowers per hour.

 

On July 14, 2005, there was a tragic accident on one of the company buses on which we ride to work every day.  On that day, as on most days, the bus was excessively overloaded. We had asked them to fix this problem but they hadn’t done anything about it. Several workers were killed or injured. I was on this bus when the accident occurred.

 

 

 

It is also common for flower plantations to require female job applicants to take a pregnancy test to demonstrate that they are not pregnant, which is illegal. Or they ask if we are planning on having more children, and if we have had an operation. The management does not do this out of concern that the pregnant women are exposed to the same toxic pesticides as all of the other workers. They do it because they don’t want to pay the maternity leave or the other benefits legally due to pregnant workers.  

 

 

Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world to be a trade union leader. Compared to other sectors, the cut flower industry fortunately has not experienced the same extreme level of trade union violence. Other forms of retaliation against unions remain all too common, however, and we hope that the violence will not escalate.

 

My coworkers and I founded a new independent union at Splendor Flowers, called Sintrasplendor, in November 2004. We were motivated to form a union because of the worsening conditions at Splendor. The company began assigning more and more flowerbeds to each worker, making the workload intolerable. Over the past ten years, the workload has doubled from 15-20 flowerbeds up to 30-40 flowerbeds per worker. This means more backbreaking labor for no more pay.  Lately the company has been firing sick workers and old workers. They also announced that they would soon turn some jobs over to subcontractors, which means that those workers will lose the little job stability that they currently have. The company was writing up its own collective agreements and making the workers sign them, without even giving them a chance to voice their opinions. We hoped that a union would enable us to present a petition to the company, and therefore negotiate improved working conditions, guaranteed overtime pay, and salary increases.

 

Sintrasplendor was the first independent union to be successfully established in a Dole-owned flower company in Colombia. When Sintrasplendor received its registration from the Ministry of Social Protection, the company presented a list of objections, asking the Ministry to revoke the registration.  Splendor Flowers used various forms of persecution against the independent union, including assigning extra work on days when the Sintrasplendor had planned assemblies and other union-related activities.

 

The company invited in another union and signed a collective bargaining agreement with them almost immediately. The agreement said that any worker who joined the company union, Sinaltraflor, would be rewarded with 40,000 pesos (approximately US$20). The company wanted the majority of workers to join Sinaltraflor, because they could then negotiate with Sinaltraflor instead of with Sintrasplendor. The company even lent one of its buses to take workers to a Sinaltraflor meeting, during working hours. Company representatives pressured workers not to join Sintrasplendor. When we distributed flyers in the plantation to explain to workers why we had formed an independent union, the company prohibited workers from reading them. According to Colombian law, it is legal to read this kind of flyer inside the workplace, during lunchtime or a break.

 

The Colombian government recognized our union as a legal entity in 2005. Nevertheless, the company still has not sat down to negotiate with us.

 

On October 12, 2006 Dole announced that it would close the Corzo farm at Splendor Flowers. We believe that the motivation behind this closure is that the company did not want to provide basic rights and decent work conditions to its workers.  Clearly, we can not trust our local laws to protect our labor rights – including our right to organize – but rather we need new and enforceable international legal tools to ensure these rights.

 

Splendor-Corzo will officially close in mid 2007 after the company completes the necessary legal processes.  Corzo is the larger of the two farms at Splendor Flowers. Dole justifies the closure of Splendor-Corzo by saying that it has “historically produced products with limited/seasonal demand and have high costs”. However, in 2001 Splendor Flowers was the second most successful flower company in Colombia, reaching 19 million dollars in sales.  Dole has not provided evidence that Splendor is a losing enterprise. It appears that the plantation closure is a response to the growing support for Sintrasplendor. Splendor management has been offering workers compensation to get them to resign. This past weekend, they fired over 200 workers. Of more than 2000 workers employed at this plantation in 2006, only 150 remain. We are worried that Dole will soon announce the closure of La Fragancia, the other plantation where an independent union has successfully been established.

 

 

Colombian workers who want to file complaints about labor rights violations are often discouraged because governmental institutions like the Ministry of Labor take so long to resolve these cases.  For example, in early 2005, my union filed several complaints before a labor judge, regarding occupational health problems and violations of the right to organize. Almost two years have passed and none of these cases has been resolved. Meanwhile, a month and a half ago the company filed a request with the Ministry of Labor to approve the mass firing of all workers at Splendor Flowers, so they can close the farm. The decision is expected to be released next week. Apparently, justice comes faster for companies than for workers.

 

 

Because of the low wages in this sector and the long working hours, I have very little time to spend with my two young children, and lack the money to give them a decent education. The realities of the flower industry have contributed to social instability and disintegration of many families in the flower-growing region of Colombia.

 

We need effective legal mechanisms to ensure that these companies give us safe, healthy, and decent workplaces. Thank you for allowing me to share this testimony, and I hope you take it into account in the consideration of S. 367.