I just saw the most baffling news report this morning. The teaser hinted at the ominous secret that might make you rethink buying Valentine’s flowers. I wondered if this year’s crops had all been dusted with LSD or something (woo, get me in line for 20!) Instead, it turned out to be about the exploitation of the workers who gather the flowers.
A woman for some organization called Fairness in Flowers or something similar said that the huge demand for flowers around Valentine’s Day meant longer working hours for flower workers. She also oddly mentioned that it takes 30 plane trips for the flowers to get to their destinations - no idea what that was about. Anyway, apparently the people who work the flower fields end up working outrageous hours in terrible conditions.
That part I could follow okay - flower workers are being exploited in the name of some silly, over-commercialized holiday. Ok, so, exploited workers bad, boycotting flowers good, right?
No. The report then continued on to say that not buying the flowers would actually hurt the farmers who run these farms and depend on their flower income for survival, so they were not suggesting that we not actually buy Valentine’s Day flowers… just to consider the people who are working to provide them.
Huh?
I honestly couldn’t figure out what their point was. Buying flowers supports exploitation, but don’t stop buying them because you’ll just starve some poor farmer (who, by the way, would be the one doing the exploiting, wouldn’t he?).
Now to be fair, news reporting in this country can sometimes be a bit bizarre, and it’s possible something got lost in the news desk’s interpretation of the facts, but the fact remains that I am still scratching my head over the weirdest news report I’ve seen in a long time.
Well, if we’re going to express sympathy for the poor, overworked flower workers at Valentine’s, don’t forget to save some sympathy for:
The low-level CPAs who work their asses off at tax time for not much money
Those poor candy-store employees who have to bust their humps getting ready for Easter
Those down-trodden Toys R Us employees who, despite the fact that they only make minimum wage, work their fingers to the bones at Christmas time
The Starbuck’s Barista’s who are mostly underpaid college students who are simply overwhelmed with business between 7AM and 9AM Monday through Friday. . .
For heaven’s sake! Industries have “busy times”! Most of these industries count on the “busy season” because that’s when they make most of their money.
I guess the news folks were trying to find a new way to spin Valentine’s Day. :rolleyes:
Well, to be fair, these are Colombians who are treated to more than just long working hours. Exposure to pesticides, child labor, meager pay, physical and mental abuse. True exploitation, not just long hours paid at time and a half.
ETA: Yeah I am still puzzling over the reputed plane trips these flowers supposedly make, and what relevance it has to the issue of exploited workers.
It’s a très fashionable drive-by with media wonks who have a 30-second “soft news” filler to fill. Just drop in the phrase “plane trips” and you get all of the above, and still make your time slot.
I see your point. But a growing number of people - including me, not that I’ve studied this closely or anything - see boycotts as a bad idea. The thinking goes that if you boycott a company, you end up hurting people on the bottom end of the food chain for something done by the people at the top. If you stop buying flowers because wages are too low and working conditions suck, the workers will get cuts in pay or they’ll get fired, which sucks more. Logically, it makes sense: if flower sales go down, the farmers (assuming this is their fault) will try everything else long before they try paying their flower pickers more money. They’d prefer to do the opposite.
I haven’t heard of a specific alternative to boycotts, but in general I think people are using protest tactics and trying to encourage companies to negotiate contracts that are more fair.
Well, I do get that. But if you’re going to have a “Fair Flowers” organization, don’t just go spouting off about how hard the workers have it, do something. Start a movement. Look what’s happened with Fair Trade coffee the past few years, not as a result of people wringing their hands and lamenting, but as a result of people actually taking measures to A, let people know about the problems, and B, offer a solution! As it is, this woman’s organization is doing A, without doing B, which is pretty much pointless.
Perhaps this “Fair Flowers” group is doing something, but the rather odd news reporter failed to include it. I’d find it hard to believe that there aren’t some “less exploitative than others” flower companies in the U.S. like this example in the U.K.