The firing of eight Toronto women by the giant package delivery company UPS goes before a federal human rights tribunal on Monday.

The women, all of them of Somali origin, were working as temporary employees for the global delivery company. They claim UPS discriminated against them when it refused to hire them permanently.

Anisa Hagi is one of the complainants.

She flipped and scanned up to 50 parcels a minute for UPS at its sorting plant on Steeles Avenue West. She got the job through a temp agency in 2005.

Nadifo Yusuf did the same work for nearly two years, never missing a shift. "I liked my work. I was a good worker and a hard worker and they [UPS] were happy too," she said.

Hagi, Yusuf and the other Somali women always wore ankle-length skirts to work.

Hagi said UPS never mentioned their clothing posed a safety hazard during the time she worked as a temp. But when a new union contract forced UPS to hire the women away from the temp agency and give them permanent jobs with better pay and benefits, Hagi says, everything changed.

Yusuf said her supervisor gave her an ultimatum: "You have to pull up your skirt above the knee, otherwise go out."

The supervisor said the type of floor-length skirt the women had worn to work every day for nearly two years was a tripping hazard.

"They actually gave me two choices, which is either raise your skirt so you can work here, or don't show up to work," said Hagi.

The other temps of Somali origin got the same ultimatum from UPS. They too refused to shorten their skirts and all were laid off.

"Temporary workers face rampant human rights violations," said Jacqui Chic, the lawyer representing the women, as well as "employment standards violations and frankly every other possible statutory violation you can think of."

"You can't keep workers for — in some cases — as much as 27 months, never once raise a health and safety issue and then use health and safety as an excuse to turf people at the point in which you would have had to pay them more," said Chic.

UPS and its lawyer have refused comment.

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal begins its hearing into the case on Monday.

If the tribunal sides with the women, it could order UPS to pay thousands of dollars in lost wages and compensation.