By RON FANFAIR
Fleeing Somalia’s civil war in 1990, Abdi Hagi Yusuf expected life to be a little bit more comfortable for him and his family in Canada.
He was wrong.
Threatened with eviction from his apartment building on Jameson Ave., Yusuf took the lead and stood up against the property owner.
“The majority of tenants in that building were Black people, some of them recent immigrants to this country,” he said. “The only reason they were trying to get us out was because of our skin colour and we didn’t speak like them. Coming from a homogenous country, I didn’t experience racism. As soon I got here, it hit me right between the eyes, even before the cold weather set in.”
The racism didn’t stop there.
“It was difficult getting jobs as I was repeatedly told I didn’t have Canadian experience,” he said. “That was puzzling because I could not get that if I was not employed. All I was asking for was an opportunity to work so I could pay my rent, take care of my family and become a productive citizen in Canada. Many Somalis came to this country at the same time with me and faced the same challenges. I realized somebody had to speak up and be the voice for the people.”
Meeting Bromley Armstrong for the first time in the 1990s inspired Yusuf to become an advocate for marginalized and racialized people.
“He showed us how it should be done and is the person mainly responsible for Canada being a better place today than it was over three decades ago,” he said. “It is because of him that I am doing this work and will continue to do it.”
On June 14, Yusuf was one of the recipients of the Bromley L. Armstrong Award established by the Toronto & York Region Labour Council (TYRLC) and Labour Community Services in 2005.
After joining Canada Post on a temporary basis in 1991, he became shop steward and, in 2003, was elected the first Black Chief Shop Steward for Gateway East that was then Canada’s largest postal facility.
Yusuf is the Canadian Union of Postal Workers-Toronto secretary-treasurer, chair of the Labour Community Services Board of Directors and secretary of the TYRLC Financial Committee.
In 2019, he was honoured with the Bob Burch Human Rights Award that recognizes an Ontario Federation of Labour executive board member, trade union activist and human rights champion.
Yusuf co-chairs the Somali Workers’ Network and is a past president of the Springdale New Democratic Party riding.
Joseanne Job did not get the opportunity to meet Armstrong before he died five years ago.
However, the President of OPSEU Local 527 has committed to keep his legacy alive.
“For me to do this work and know I am standing on the shoulders of someone who did it and endured many challenges is something I am proud of,” said Job who was honoured with the award bearing the trailblazer’s name.
Leaving Trinidad & Tobago at age 10 and settling in the Malvern community in Scarborough, she was featured as one of the ‘Faces of Canadian Labour’ in the 2016 summer issue of Maclean’s magazine.
Where did her passion for fighting injustice come from?
“I just never liked to see people get picked on,” she said. “I hate bullies. That is pretty much it. Everyone deserves a chance to be seen, heard and valued.”
A member of the Toronto Police Service Black Community Consultative Committee, Job is the assistant to the Vice-Chairs at the Ontario Labour Relations Board.
Black Class Action Secretariat executive director Nicholas Marcus Thompson was the other individual award recipient.
Since 2021, the Bromley L. Armstrong Award has been presented to affiliated union locals for their exceptional work.
“It is one thing to say here is a champion, but it is another to say here is an organization that has really done the heavy lifting,” said retired TYRLC president John Cartwright. “Collective efforts matter in the work we do.”
The Society of United Professionals (SUP) and Toronto Education Workers Local 4400 were this year’s recipients.
President Michelle Johnston accepted the award on behalf of the SUP that is affiliated to the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers.
“This award is very important because it focuses on what is important in humans and we all should be aspiring to be like what Bromley was,” said the former information technology Senior Business Process Analyst who became a union activist after the Society’s 105-day strike of Hydro One in 2005.
When the TYRLC Equity Committee made the decision 18 years ago to name an award after a human rights activist in the labour movement, Armstrong was the unanimous pick.
The trade unionist, community organizer and activist died in 2018 at age 92.
Cartwright supported the decision to establish the award that honours Armstrong’s courage, dedication and outstanding service to Canada’s labour and human rights movement.
“Before Bromley came to Canada in 1947, he was involved in the trade union movement,” he said. “He brought those values with him along with the ability to challenge things that he didn’t think were right. In doing so, he was building movements and his imprint is on many organizations across this city. He did that with an insistence on respect for human rights and a keen understanding that you need allies to effect change.”
Armstrong fought for civil and human rights long before Canada had a legislative and constitutional framework to defend human rights and collective agreements that included human rights language.
He was the last survivor of the 29-member delegation led by Donald Moore that went to Ottawa in 1954 to protest the federal government’s restrictive immigration policy that shut out Blacks and other visible minorities.
The landmark trip and the subsequent relaxation of immigration laws partly because of Canada’s demand for cheap and unskilled labour led to the introduction of the West Indian Domestic Scheme (WIDS) that paved the way for a quota of about 280 Caribbean women to enter Canada annually. They were subsequently granted landed immigrant status in return for their services.
At Massey Harris – his first Canadian employer – where his hourly starting wage was 62 cents which was 13 cents less than that of co-worker and Irish immigrant, Dennis McDermott, who was expelled from South Africa in 1941 after he was caught socializing with a Black friend, Armstrong became active in the United Auto Workers Local 439 after being denied the opportunity to become the company’s first Black welder.
He also participated in ‘sit-ins’ and ‘test cases’ in Toronto and Dresden in the 1950s to protest Blacks being denied housing and refused services in restaurants, stores and barbershops.
During the awards ceremony, tribute was paid to Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) Canada member Carol Wall who passed away on April 22.
After 17 years working in the Toronto Star’s advertisement department, Wall joined the labour movement fulltime, serving as a national representative for the Communications, Energy & Paperworkers Union and as that union’s first Director of Human Rights in 2000.
A year later, Wall represented the union at the World Conference against Racism conference in Durban, South Africa and, in 2002, was elected vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC).
In 2005, she unsuccessfully challenged Ken Georgetti for the CLC presidency.
At the time of her death, Wall was regional director of the Federal Mediation Conciliation Service.
“Carol was an amazing leader who served well in several union roles and mentored many people,” Cartwright said. “Her patience and the work she did around helping movements to form and individuals to take the steps needed to secure legal rights within the human rights and equity framework stood out.”
