USLEAP’s Program Coordinator, Lupita Aguila participated in the protest outside, while Stephen Coats, the Director of USLEAP, and I attended the event inside. In a small ballroom within a downtown hotel, we were served fresh fruit, muffins and beverages, along with an elaborate butter molding for our croissants. I opened the Program booklet and immediately noticed the Monsanto logo at the top of the page, the sponsorship of the event, which highlighted the business perspective of the audience and the corporate atmosphere. I prepared myself.

With the end of New York Fashion week and the beginning of London Fashion Week, clothes are definitely on everyone’s mind and ethical clothing is hopefully next on the list. The Shop with a Conscience Guide produced annually by the International Labor Rights Forum and SweatFree Communities helps you be an ethical consumer with suggestions for a variety of clothing stores that sell goods that are made in worker-friendly environments.

With the high demand for flowers during this time, companies often promote a “bonus” for workers who are interested in working from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m. A few of these workers have yet to see these bonuses and it is more than likely that they are not the only ones. The need for extra income is very common among flower workers, especially because many of them are getting paid only the minimum wage of around $230 dollars per month. However, there are certain payment subsidies for healthcare and pensions that are required by law which often leave workers with only 40% of their salaries to feed and provide basic necessities to their families.

Flower industry advocates like corporations and Colombian banks go so far as to describe women workers as “a ready supply of cheap female labor for sorting and packing the flowers,” (from an industry guidebook written in 1993). It is also a common belief to assume that women are more ideal to work with flowers since, for some reason, women have more nimble fingers and provide more delicate handling of flowers. Due to the repetitive and rapid motions of working with flowers, many women develop stress injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome.