Hassan Yussuff
Quick Facts
Biography
Hassan Yussuff is a Canadian labour leader and president of the Canadian Labour Congress.
Yussuff emigrated to Canada from Guyana as a young man to work as a heavy truck mechanic and soon found employment on the plant floor of CanCar, an automotive parts manufacturer, in Toronto where he became a member of the Canadian Auto Workers. Within a year, he was elected plant chairperson of Local 252 of the Canadian Auto Workers and later was elected plant chairman of the General Motors Truck Centre. He later served as a staff representative in the organizing and service departments before being appointed as Director of the CAW Human Rights Department. As such, Yussuff joined the CLC’s Executive Council and then co-chaired the CLC Human Rights Committee.
In 1999, he was elected Executive Vice-President of the Canadian Labour Congress and was then elected Secretary-Treasurer in 2002. He remained in that position until 2014 when he challenged incumbent CLC President Ken Georgetti, defeating him by 40 votes at the CLC's May 2014 convention to become CLC president, and the first person to unseat an incumbent CLC president. On April 20, 2012, Yussuff was elected to a four-year term as President of the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA).