Eunice

Eunice (27) is the mother of two daughters and since 2012 she has worked as a ’buncher’ at Rosebud, the largest rose grower and exporter in Uganda: she bundles the roses and prepares them for packaging and transporting to the market. In addition to her work at Rosebud she is the treasurer for the Rosebud branch of the union UHISPAWU.

Eunice at work. Photo: Jan Banning
Text courtesy of Hope Kabuchu

180 bunches a day

She says that she is satisfied with her work if and when she can meet her personal target of 180 bunches a day. Although the bonus is negligible, she says that she can sometimes make as many as 50 bunches more than her daily target. She enjoys her work because she doesn’t feel she’s being put under pressure as the targets are clear and she’s the one who does the monitoring. Eunice says that one of her challenges is the pain in her chest that she now and again feels. And that she then has to take it easy or do lighter work until the pain lessens.

Work as a trade union leader

Eunice’s introduction to the union UHISPAWU was a month after she got her job. She became a member because the work situation was not at all good at that time. She has since been elected treasurer for the Rosebud branch. The work suits her. "Employees come and look for me. It’s our job to help each other.“ And it’s not every day that problems occur. But she believes a leader should be available on the shop floor to help workers when there are problems. A number of the problems she has solved for employees have to do with unfair dismissals. She negotiates not only for union members but for non-members as well. This is because she wants to show that they stand up for the rights of all employees. Like this, they also recruit more members.

Replacement of protective equipment and day-care provision

One of the problems that the union is working on is quicker replacement of personal protective equipment (PPE) by the company, which sometimes takes such a long time to arrange. This kind of equipment, gloves and aprons for example, gets damaged very quickly by the thorns on the roses. It is also the union leaders’ task to make employees aware that they must at all times wear their personal protective equipment, especially helmets and masks. The union is still negotiating for better day-care facilities and extending breastfeeding breaks for nursing mothers. Because of the lack of child care facilities at work, mothers spend a long time travelling back home and then back to work again to breast feed their babies during the extra lunch hour and scarcely have any rest. If the working mothers want to be at work at 6.55, they have to leave home very early in the morning.

Eunice at home. Photo: Jan Banning

Impact on private life

The work affects their private life. Eunice: “You can’t, as a woman, stay at home without working. You have to take care of your children, contribute to the family income and elderly parents also need help, so you may well have to send them some money ". Eunice’s net wage is only UGX 207,000, which is approximately € 51 a month. She says that it is difficult for her and her family, because with just one day off a week she has no time to go in search of work somewhere else. The union did manage to agree a wage rise but after that, provision of lunch-time meals ceased. Eunice tells us that many employees don’t have lunch because they can’t afford it. She believes that without the union, it would be difficult to achieve anything; the union leads to unity among the employees.

Proud mother