UFCW Featured Faces
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Uncommon Strength for a Common Good
Ask Edil Hassan what she wants to do, and her answer is swift and sure. “No matter how much time it takes me, I’m going to be a human rights lawyer.” Perhaps not a common ambition for a 21-year-old Somali immigrant from South Africa, but an understandable one, especially given her fight for justice at Tyson’s beef slaughter and packing plant in Alberta, Canada.
Hassan’s family immigrated to Alberta from South Africa eleven years ago. She began working at Tyson to put herself through school because she’d heard the pay at the plant was good. Also, she thought that her command of English and her knowledge of Canadian laws and culture would be helpful to her fellow immigrants working at the plant. “I just wanted to help other immigrants. I never cut a piece of meat in my life before.” Hassan says.
But when she started work at the plant, there was no union, a shortage of workers, a line that moved dangerously fast, often causing mistakes and injuries. Hassan’s job was to trim fat from the meat that came down the line. “It’s not a hard job,” Hassan says. “But you must do it fast, and you must do the same thing over and over. It is so fast, that before you are done with one piece of meat, there is another one waiting, right in front of you.”
Hassan herself has crushed her hand at work. Tyson managers told her she could go home that day, but that she would have to work the next day or be fired. A doctor told her she would need expensive surgery, and initially Tyson refused to pay. Unlike many new immigrant employees, Hassan knew her rights. “I told them I had a lawyer, and that they had to compensate me.”
Tyson backed down, granted her time off and paid for her surgery. And Hassan earned a reputation among her co-workers as a fighter against injustice. When her plant was organized by UFCW Local 401 she became a union activist, shining a light on safety hazards and on the injustices that immigrants—especially women—faced in the plant. When workers staged a month-long strike for a fair first contract last November, Hassan was especially vocal. Her spirited advocacy on behalf of her co-workers landed her in the pages of several local papers.
But Hassan shrugs all that off. “I don’t want to be famous. All I want is dignity and respect for these workers so we all can make plans for a safer, more secure future.”
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