Florida produces roughly 70% of the nation’s houseplants, most of them grown in Miami-Dade County nurseries. Behind the greenery sold at retailers like Home Depot, Walmart, and IKEA is a largely invisible workforce that plants, trims, fertilizes, and waters those plants—often in punishing heat.
As climate change drives more extreme temperatures in South Florida, nursery workers—most of them women, immigrants, and people of color—say they regularly suffer heat-related illnesses.
After appeals for ensuring basic protections like water, rest, and shade in Miami-Dade and Tallahassee failed, workers are now taking their fight directly to the powerful growers and retailers at the top of the supply chain.
The Miami Herald follows plant nursery workers from the fields of Homestead into a growing national organizing campaign, “Planting Justice,” as they pressure major growers and big-box retailers to sign a code of conduct that provides for safer working conditions and monitoring by an independent oversight body.
Caption: A worker holds a plant with a protest sign reading, in English, "I am fighting for a fair wage." Image by Matias Ocner/Miami Herald.
