U.N. Panel: Valentine's Day Rife With Labor Issues

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations may have the perfect excuse not to buy chocolate or flowers for your loved ones on Valentine's Day: labor rights issues in the cut-flower and chocolate industries.

At "Valentine's Day Flowers and Chocolates: To Give or Not To Give" — a panel organized by the world body's Department of Public Information — several speakers are expected to tell reporters today that both industries are rife with exploitation and rights violations. In addition, the panelists will also explain what they think love is all about.

"Everybody likes flowers and chocolates, and Valentine's Day is certainly the time when the giving and receiving of those are at its peak," a DPI press release promoting the event proclaims. During the event, briefers "will look at how this day came into existence, as well as how and why we love," the release adds. "The guest speakers will also discuss the not-so-romantic realities behind these annual gifts of love and some rather grim labor-rights issues as they pertain to the cut-flower and chocolate industries."

An "award-winning" film about the offending industries, produced by the U.N.-affiliated International Labor Organization, will be screened as well, according to the release.

The panelists will include the spokesman for ILO, Kevin Cassidy; a Rutgers University anthropologist, Helen Fisher; a New York Times journalist, Steven Greenhouse, and the founder of Fairness in Flowers Campaign of a nongovernmental organization, the International Labor Rights Forum.

A U.N. spokeswoman, Michele Montas, told The New York Sun yesterday that Secretary-General Ban has not had time to weigh in on the "to give or not to give" dilemma in the event's title.