While you are out there buying up last minute gifts for the love in your life, try to remember las Rosas del Ecuador. These workers (mostly women) supply the United States with the majority of the cut flowers we offer up all year long. Am I telling you to not give a gift to your love on this corporately sponsored holiday? Hell no, that is ridiculous. Just remember to tell your honey that the flowers are from you and Las Rosas del Ecuador.
Telling your honey where the flowers are from isn’t going to help the women flower workers in Ecuador. Writing letters to the big corporations that sell the flowers isn’t likely to help either, not as long as you continue to buy their flowers. Those corporations have little incentive to change the way their treat their workers as long as the money keeps coming in. So write to them and tell them that you will no longer buy their flowers until they have changed their oppressive ways; get all your friends to do the same. Then follow through.