Eliza Puganen will start in September as SEL’s organizational officer, substituting for Chau Nguyen during his parental leave.

SEL’s union board has selected 25-year-old Eliza Puganen as SEL’s organizational officer, responsible for supporting immigrant members while Chau Nguyen is on parental leave from September 1, 2024, to January 31, 2025.

Puganen lives in Jokioinen and works as a meat inspector for the Ruokavirasto at HKFoods’ Forssa production facility. She is also the deputy chief shop steward for the meat inspectors of Ruokavirasto. Puganen is a board member of the Forssa Food Workers’ Local Union Branch 027 and the youth representative for both the local union and SEL’s Western Finland region. She has also completed the Young Union Influencer training at the KSL Study Center.

– I enjoy working with people and helping them. I’m happy to have an opportunity to do this as part of my job at the union. I hope I can help as many people as possible and give more information about union to people. Thank you for this opportunity and trust, says Eliza Puganen.

The number of immigrant workers in the food industry is continuously increasing. As an organizational officer, Eliza Puganen will be responsible for supporting SEL’s immigrant members. Additionally, her role will involve identifying what immigrant food industry workers expect from the union and developing a plan to meet these expectations, including finding out what kind of training they need.

In addition to her native languages, Finnish and Russian, Puganen can work in Ukrainian and English.

During Chau Nguyen’s family leave, organizational officer Minttu Sillanpää will be responsible for SEL’s youth activities.

In the photo, SEL’s organizational officer Minttu Sillanpää is on the left, and Eliza Puganen is on the right at SEL’s youth cruise in May. Photo: Bibek Bista