Coworkers call Rabia Syed the “all star” of organizing. At 50 years old, Syed has spent more than half her life working tirelessly in union rights activism. Today, she is a full-time organizer for Workers United, a union that assists non-unionized workers in Canada and the U.S. to achieve the change they want to see in their workplace.

Her job title isn’t as simple as it may sound. As a union organizer, Syed listens to the concerns of non-unionized workers across the country and helps them come together to demand fairness in their workplace. She often takes bold actions opposing employers who are positioned firmly against unions, organizing for workers in health and retirement care, manufacturing, travel and tourism—to name just a few. Some of her biggest wins, as Syed calls them, include unionizing the first Sunrise Senior Living retirement home in North America in 2006. She also organized for a 62-year-old registered nurse to keep her job after her employer, essentially, deemed she was too old to work. “That brings me joy—that we can change the unions,” Syed says. “I couldn’t ask for a more meaningful career.”

Syed’s enthusiasm for helping others has long run through her blood. Born and raised in the Philippines, Syed came to understand what poverty was. As a child, she saw people around her struggling financially to feed their families. However, it was in the Philippines that Syed also discovered a sense of community: in dark times, people would find the help they needed from their neighbours. Her parents taught her to respect others who wanted help. Though Syed moved to Canada when she was 20 years old, it was in the Philippines that she decided to dedicate her life to helping others.

People have taken notice to Syed’s unconditional care for those seemingly without a voice. Workers United union organizer Matt Gailitis has worked with Syed for more than nine years and believes that she works tirelessly for other people by empowering and empathizing with them. “She brings a lot of hope to workers,” he says, “and makes people realize things can be better.”

Syed, however, rarely gives herself such credit—she considers herself to be like the workers she organizes. When talking about what motivates her to do her job, Syed attributes her co-workers for reminding her of the strides she has taken. And though she perhaps underestimates her ability to change lives, Syed is so inspiring even her children have taken up the battle of fighting for equality. Syed has four children, some of which have written and performed songs about workers rights and fair wages. The younger generation is taking workers rights seriously, Syed says. “It’s beautiful.”

Despite progress, Syed says that workers rights in Canada need more attention. “It’s important for workers to know their rights. Race, gender, age these are all barriers and discrimination people face today,” she says, “they also face it in the workplace.”

Ming Pao workers picketing outside their workplace. The paper’s 140 workers walked off the job last Wed. Sept. 21, in an effort to win a first contract- and the strike has been disappointingly under-reported in Canadian media. Photo from the Ming Pao union.

“Stay strong. Fight for justice, fight for our dignity, fight together.”

The above is a message from Simon Sung to his fellow employees at Ming Pao, a Chinese-language daily newspaper in Toronto. The paper’s 140 employees have been on strike for nearly a week, yet no English-language media outlet that we’ve been able to find has reported on it so far. (Update, 5:03 pm: via commenter Natalie below, the strike came up on CBC’s Metro Morning today.)

The paper’s workers walked off the job last Wed. Sept. 21, in an effort to win a first contract. Last September, Ming Pao workers joined the Communications, Energy and Paperworks Union of Canada (CEP)’s Local 87M Southern Ontario Newsmedia Guild, after 65 percent of the paper’s employees voted to unionize.

Contract talks have happened on and off since January 2011, but the paper still does not have its first contract. Paul Morse, president of the Southern Ontario Newsmedia Guild, says that key issues on the table for Ming Pao are wages, sales commission, security guarantees, reasonable work hours, and minimum vacation requirements.

Sung, a Ming Pao employee and union chair, says that Ming Pao is looking for a fair contract comparable to that of Sing Tao Daily, another Chinese-language newspaper in Toronto. Sing Tao went on strike for seven weeks before unionizing with Local 87M in 2000. Local 87M also represents World Journal, another Chinese-language newspaper in Toronto.

Sung says that Sing Tao Daily employees have higher wages, less work hours, and fairer vacation time. But for Sung, the biggest issue at Ming Pao is job security. He says that when the Ming Pao employees formed the union, more than 10 employees were laid off — mostly union supporters or union activists.

“We know that our employers did not like that we formed the union,” said Sung. “And from our perspective, that’s a punishment to the people who formed the union.”

A contract, Sung said, would give Ming Pao’s employers less excuses to lay people off—which he described as “a target to minimize the power of the union.”

Morse, along with Sung, hopes that the employers will come back to the bargaining table soon in order to negotiate a reasonable contract for Ming Pao employees.

The fact that other media outlets have either taken no notice of the strike, or noticed but decided not to cover it, has disappointing implications for the city’s rhetoric about diversity. At the very least, it points to the erosion of labour reporting at the big papers.

“The Ming Pao workers are looking for standards things that working people in Ontario have achieved over the years,” said Morse. “They’re no different than anybody else in Ontario in terms of needing to make a living, needing to work, and appropriate standards of work. So we hope the company realizes that it’s to their and our advantage to treat their workers fairly. There’s nothing that the Ming Pao employees are asking that’s outside the realm of normalcy.”