Planting Justice

Our Project

Planting Justice is a project to educate and organize plant nursery workers, consumers, and other allies to ensure respect for human rights in the plant nursery industry. We are uniting together to put an end to labor abuses like wage theft, gender-based violence, labor trafficking, and unsafe working conditions.

The Invisible Crisis

The Workers Who Make Our Indoor Houseplants

Florida is the top producer of indoor houseplants and tropical foliage in the United States, providing about 69% of the nation’s indoor foliage. Miami-Dade leads the state with over 1,500 plant nurseries that supply plants to consumers, home improvement stores, corporate retailers, landscapers, and government bodies nationwide. In Florida, thousands of plant nursery workers make this industry possible by planting, cultivating, harvesting, and packaging plants for millions of consumers across the United States.

Most of these workers are immigrants from Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America, and the majority are women. Despite working in a billion-dollar industry, plant nursery workers in Florida are facing a human rights crisis that remains largely invisible to the average consumer, including poverty wages, lack of benefits, sexual harassment and violence, dangerous exposure to pesticides, and lack of protections from extreme heat. We are organizing to transform these conditions and win dignity and human rights in our industry.

The Human Landscape

Wages and Working Conditions of Plant Nursery Workers in South Miami-Dade

Read Our Report

A Worker-Driven Solution

Planting Justice is a project led and driven by hundreds of plant nursery workers in South Florida, the national epicenter of the indoor plant industry. On September 1, 2024, WeCount! hosted our first-ever Planting Justice Assembly with workers and allies to launch our new project and chart a new path in the industry. Check out the video and photos from our Assembly!