{"id":255505,"date":"2026-05-02T15:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T15:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/255505\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T15:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T15:23:07","slug":"miami-nursery-workers-march-for-safer-working-conditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/255505\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami nursery workers march for safer working conditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hundreds<\/p>\n

Hundreds of demonstrators marched two miles through Coral Gables on Friday to call attention to labor abuses in Florida\u2019s plant nursery industry.<\/p>\n

Pedro Portal<\/p>\n

pportal@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n

This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center<\/p>\n

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Coral Gables on Friday, marching with Miami-Dade plant nursery workers as they fight for safer working conditions.<\/p>\n

Led by workers\u2019 rights group WeCount, the protesters marched two miles up U.S. 1 in the Coral Gables area between 42nd and 27th Avenues, stopping along the way at Trader Joe\u2019s, Target, Aldi, Home Depot and Sprouts \u2014 all suppliers of the houseplants the workers grow, trim and ship around the country.<\/p>\n

As part of their Planting Justice Program<\/a>, WeCount called on those stores to only stock houseplants from nurseries that abide by a legally binding, worker-developed code of conduct that provides for safer working conditions, like heat protections and monitoring by an independent oversight body.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re demanding justice and dignity,\u201d shouted Ana Mejia, who worked in plant nurseries for more than a decade before becoming a worker leader with WeCount, over the crowd\u2019s chorus of \u201cs\u00ed, se puede.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nearly half of all houseplants in the United States originate in Miami-Dade nurseries, and for more than a decade, Mejia had a hand in growing them.<\/p>\n

She recalled laboring for hours under a beating sun, breathing South Florida\u2019s soupy summer air as she trimmed plants at an exceptional clip \u2013 101 per hour \u2013 to meet her quotas.<\/p>\n

Early on a September morning in 2022, she began to feel lightheaded as she worked. Her body started to convulse. She was in the throes of a heat stroke, but was afraid to say anything to her boss. She was making minimum wage, then $10 an hour, and worried about being able to feed her kids and pay her rent if she lost a day of work \u2014 or her job.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy life is in danger,\u201d she recalled thinking. \u201cWhat will happen to my kids?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mejia\u2019s story tracks with data collected<\/a> recently by WeCount, which polled hundreds of Miami-Dade plant nursery workers.<\/p>\n

Nearly 90 percent of respondents reported injuries or illness on the job \u2014 afflictions that spanned heat stroke to exposure to pesticides. One third said they had no access to drinking water, while 60 percent had never received a paid sick day.<\/p>\n

The worker-led push comes two years after construction and agriculture interests<\/a> successfully lobbied the Florida Legislature to ban local governments from passing heat protections for workers, even during the hot summer months.<\/p>\n

\"Hundreds Hundreds of demonstrators participated in the WeCount “March for Planting Justice” to call attention to labor abuses in Florida\u2019s plant nursery industry. Pedro Portal pportal@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n

So with little legislative recourse, the nursery workers are taking their message directly to the stores that sell their plants \u2013 and the customers who buy them.<\/p>\n

The strategy is inspired by the Fair Food Program, a Florida-born initiative in which farmworkers successfully convinced major produce buyers, including Taco Bell, McDonald\u2019s, Whole Foods and Walmart, to only source from farms that agreed to a code of conduct that provides for water, rest and shade as well as independent oversight.<\/p>\n

The Fair Food Program went global. It now protects thousands of farmworkers and has been replicated in other industries, including dairy and apparel.<\/p>\n

But whether it takes off with plant nurseries remains to be seen. WeCount emailed letters to a number of major retailers asking to talk. Only Ikea responded \u2013 to say that it already has a \u201csupplier code of conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this stage, we do not need to set up a meeting,\u201d Ikea wrote in a March 26 letter to WeCount that was reviewed by the Herald.<\/p>\n

Protesters persisted nevertheless, marching their message, contract in hand, into stores up and down Coral Gables\u2019 stretch of U.S. 1.<\/p>\n

At each stop, a contingent of no more than 10 workers and organizers broke from the group, walked inside and pitched whoever was in charge on Planting Justice, explaining what the working conditions are like at the nurseries that supply the retailers\u2019 plants.<\/p>\n

Store managers by and large received them warmly but said that sourcing decisions were above their pay grade.<\/p>\n

The demonstration on Friday, with a heat index projected to hit 100 degrees, kicked off Miami-Dade\u2019s heat season, which now arrives earlier, lasts longer and is more intense because of climate change.<\/p>\n

Florida leads the nation in heat-related illnesses, emergency room visits and hospitalizations, according to the Florida Policy Institute.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur lives hang in the balance at these nurseries,\u201d said Mejia, the former nursery worker. But major retailers \u201cgenerate millions of dollars at the expense of our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was produced with financial support from supporters including The Green Family Foundation Trust and Ken O\u2019Keefe, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as well as the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Family Foundation and MSC Cruises. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published May 2, 2026 at 10:30 AM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of demonstrators marched two miles through Coral Gables on Friday to call attention to labor abuses in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-255505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}