retiree Former Local 237 President Carl Haynes Dies

news & views april 2010_1 4/19/10 3:09 pM page 2
retiree
news & views
a publication of local 237 retiree division
• vol. 15 no. 4 • april 2010
Former Local 237 President Carl Haynes Dies
C
arl Haynes, president of Local 237 from
1993 to 2007 and a member of the executive board that established the Retiree
Division thirty years ago, died of a heart attack
on April 8 at the age of 76. The funeral was
April 14.
“Carl Haynes was a giant of labor, yet always remained humble and compassionate
during his many years of service,” Local 237
President Greg Floyd said. Floyd told the Chief
newspaper that he remembered Haynes for
“the calm demeanor in the face of adversity
and his patience at the negotiating table. When
it looked like there was no hope in sight, he
kept a positive outlook,” Floyd said.
Retiree Division Director Nancy True said,
“Carl loved the retirees. Many of them had
been his co-workers at the Housing Authority
and participated with him in the 1967 strike.
They will not forget how, as president, Carl
stood up to repeated demands by the city during contract talks to reduce retiree benefits.”
Haynes came to many Retiree Division
events and spoke often of the contributions retirees made to building Local 237 and the city
of New York. He encouraged the labor movement to take advantage of the experience and
commitment of retirees in union drives and
election campaigns.
With retirees at the 2002 Labor Day parade
The son of a railroad worker and a graduate of his hometown college, West Virginia
State College, Haynes came to New York and
found a job working in the city’s youth services agency in 1956. In 1960 he went to work
for NYCHA as a housing assistant. By 1967, he
had become chairman of the 600-member
housing assistant chapter and was a leader of
the only strike in NYCHA’s history, in 1967,
which won significant gains for public housing
employees.
Haynes joined the union staff as a business agent in 1968 and was soon promoted to
assistant director and later director of the
union’s Housing Division. He became a
trustee in 1978 and, in 1983, was elected vice
president. He took over the presidency in 1993
after then-President Barry Feinstein was
forced out by the government, was elected to
a five-year term in 1994, and re-elected in 1999
and 2004. He retired in 2007.
Under his leadership, Teamsters Local 237
continued to grow in numbers even as the
Giuliani Administration downsized the city’s
workforce and squeezed municipal labor
unions for significant concessions.
The union under Haynes also won significant political and legislative victories, including the defeat of attempts by the Health and
Hospitals Corporation to privatize the union’s
800 hospital police officers in 1999 and passage of a state law that hospital police jobs
can never be privatized.
Haynes also served on the executive
boards of many organizations.
Haynes is survived by his wife Janice
Haynes, a daughter, Leann, a son, Jay, three
grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
A Retiree Division retirement reception for Carl
Haynes in 2007
The Retiree Division’s annual program to honor
Martin Luther King, Jr. in 2007
Haynes’s Career
The Retiree Division’s Sunshine Club holiday
drive for children of Teamster flood victims in
the Midwest in 1997
Retiree Division meeting in Puerto Rico in 2006
Bowling at the special event preceding the
annual Florida Retiree Conference in 2002
news & views april 2010_1 4/19/10 3:09 pM page 3
page 2
retiree neWs & vieWs
B
y now many of you know that the
former president of Local 237, Carl
Haynes, passed away April 8 of a
heart attack. I know many of you worked
with Carl at the Housing Authority,
where he started out as a housing assistant in 1960, and went out on strike with
him in 1967. He was a picket captain. He
always spoke proudly of that strike, the
only one in the Housing Authority’s history, and a strike that won important improvements for the workers..
Carl Haynes was a leader on many
levels. At Local 237, after he came on
staff and before he became president in
1993, he was a business agent, assistant
director of the Housing Division, director
of the Housing Division, and vice president. While president of our local, he
served on the executive boards of the
New York State AFL-CIO, the New York
Central Labor Council, and the Municipal Labor Committee. He was a vice
president of the Teamsters International,
director of the Teamsters Public Employees Division until last December, one of
two Teamsters Union representatives,
and the only local president, on the national AFL-CIO Executive Council. He
was also one of three union representatives on the executive board of NYCERS
W
e are all deeply saddened by
the passing of Carl Haynes.
Just the week before he died of
a heart attack he was here at Local 237 to
be taped for the video we are preparing
for the Retiree Division’s 30th anniversary.
Carl was committed to lifelong
unionsm. He often said that Local 237
“not only talks the talk, but walks the
walk of ‘Retired from work, not from the
union.’ As vice president of Local 237,
and even more as president after 1993, he
was one of our greatest champions, a
strong advocate for retirees. He steadfastly resisted attempts by the city to cut
retiree health benefits during contract neRETIREE NEWS & VIEWS
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GreGory FloyD
rICHArD HeNDerSHoT
president
vice president
rubeN TorreS
secretary-treasurer
Nancy b. True
Managing editor
PATrICIA STryker
recording secretary
Donna ristorucci
editor
A Message
from the
President
and on the board of the United Way. Despite all these titles, he always remained
humble and compassionate. And the
members always came first.
From the beginning of his presidency,
Carl was committed to reshaping Local
237’s executive board and departments
to reflect the growing diversity of the
membership. He was bold and willing to
try new things. He brought new, young
blood from the rank and file into leadership of the union. I was a young police
captain at Queens Hospital at the time—
at 27, the youngest captain in HHC’s history. Less than a year into his presidency,
Carl took a chance and brought me onto
the staff as deputy director of the peace
officer titles in the Citywide Division,
and in 1999 he appointed me director of
the Citywide Division. I’ll always be
grateful for the confidence and faith Carl
had in me.
I learned a lot about leadership from
Carl Haynes
By Nancy B. True
Director, Retiree Division
gotiations. When soaring prescription
drug costs compelled the trustees of the
Retirees’ Benefit Fund to lower the drug
cap, he worked with the trustees to raise
it at the first opportunity.
When the Retiree Division wanted
to participate in the union’s voter registration drives and do phone banking to
get out the vote, Carl said, “Go for it.”
He supported the idea of retired shop
stewards as mentors for new shop
stewards, and invited them to them to
shop steward training conferences.
Carl loved the chance to talk to retirees
at Retiree Division programs. I’m sure
many of you remember how he spoke
from the heart about his experiences as a
young man at our annual tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. several years ago. He
was always happy to see retirees, many of
them former co-workers, at our meetings
april 2010
Carl, especially during our successful
struggle to stop the privatization of hospital police and to win passage of a state
law to prevent privatization of hospital
police once and for all. I continued to
learn from him on the Executive Board as
a trustee and then secretary-treasurer. I
saw his commitment to lifelong unionism and his appreciation for what retirees
did to build the union during your working years and your continued support in
retirement.
Carl was a great labor leader and a
great man. We will miss him.
•
Since the last issue of Retiree News &
Views, the health reform bill that we campaigned so hard for has become the law of
the land. While not everything we hoped
for, it will extend health coverage to tens of
millions of uninsured Americans, including those with pre-existing conditions, and
improve coverage of millions more, including retirees.
Sadly, not a single Republican voted
for this law, and Republicans and other
opponents have pledged to repeal health
reform by defeating legislators who voted
for it in mid-term elections in 2010. We
will have to campaign hard to prevent
this from happening. We can do it.
in Florida and Puerto Rico.
His advocacy for retirees didn’t stop
at our local. Nationally, as a member of
the Executive Board of the AFL-CIO, he
spoke out for the concept of lifelong
unionism and was on the committee that
drew up Proposition 13, which called on
the labor movement to take advantage of
the contributions retirees could make to
labor campaigns. In 1997, Carl was
thrilled to have Local 237 host Senior
Summer, the AFL-CIO pilot program to
mobilize retirees for union organizing
drives and workers rights campaigns.
Many Local 237 retirees participated.
When Carl retired in March 2007,
many of you contributed recollections
about Carl to a “memory book” that we
gave him at a reception the Retiree Division held to welcome him membership
in the Retiree Division. It was a wonderful tribute, and something he treasured.
As we celebrate the 30th anniversary
of the Retiree Division, we can take pride
in the fact that Carl Haynes was a member of the Executive Board that created
the division in 1980. He viewed that as
one of the union’s great achievements.
news & views april 2010_1 4/19/10 3:09 pM page 4
april 2010
retiree neWs & vieWs
page 3
RETIREES MARK WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH
Author of Sisters
in the Brotherhoods
W
Adeboye Subuloye with students at the School
for Handicapped Children in Iseyin, Nigeria.
Note he is wearing the Retiree Division’s
“Retired from work, not from the union” button. “I
wear it everywhere I go,” Subuloye said.
Adeboye Subuloye with children on a Sunday
visit to a university science laboratory
A woman surrounded by neighborhood children
fills her container with water at no cost at the community’s new, $2,000 water facility. A large plaque
above the spigot reads in part: “Water and Walkway Facilities for the use of Humanity, Provided by
Adeboye and Risikat Foundation.”
Adeboye Subuloye
visits an elderly
woman who receives
assistance from the
foundation. Subuloye
said, “Some of the
elderly can’t do
anything. We send
people to visit them,
clean their homes,
wash their clothes.
We give them beans
and rice. We even
have barbers come
to their homes.”
A Retiree Brings Hope to Nigerians
A
mid the turmoil in
Nigeria, there is a
bright spot in the
town of Iseyin in the
southwestern part of the
country: the Adeboye &
Risikat Foundation—and
it was created by Local
237 retiree Adeboye Subuloye and his wife, Risikat.
Subuloye is a Yoruban prince, the greatgreat grandson of a slave who was adopted
into the royal family of the Yoruba tribe. He,
his wife, and their three younger children
came to the United States in 1998 after Subuloye won the green card lottery the year before, and settled in Ft. Green, Brooklyn. He
was hired as a campus security assistant by
CUNY Law School in Flushing, Queens, and
joined Local 237. When he retired last May at
the age of 61, he returned to Nigeria to set up
the Adeboye & Risikat Foundation, traveling
back and forth between the two countries.
“It was my dream to come to the United
States, then go back home to help physically
challenged children” Subuloye told Retiree
News & Views last month. He had come to the
Retiree Division office for assistance with his
benefits the week before, and returned with articles about him from CUNY Law School’s staff
and alumni newsletters, photographs, and
charts illustrating the fruits of the Adeboye &
Risikat Foundation. “I got this way from my
parents,” Subuloye explained. “When I was little, my father took me to markets at night and
gave me money to give to the poor.” He is also
motivated by his wife, who is blind.
During his years as a campus security assistant, Subuloye sent money home—his
own, along with donations from family,
friends, and co-workers—to support programs for physically disabled children, the
blind, lepers, and others. U.S. money goes
much further in Nigeria,” Subuloye said.
The foundation’s list of “What We Provide” includes driving children free of charge
to and from school, organizing trips and excursion programs for primary and secondary
school students, administration of the school
for the physically challenged in Iseyin, free
transportation for physically challenged children and aged people and for law enforcement personnel on the streets, cleaning the
homes of senior citizens and doing their laundry, donating clothing and food to those in
need, and youth counseling and mediation.
Subuloye credits Local 237 with teaching
him skills needed to start the foundation. “I attended retirement planning seminars in the fall
and the spring. I learned how to organize myself to be able to do what I want to do. With the
knowledge I got from the union, it was easy for
me to start the foundation,” he said. “I wear my
Teamsters button everywhere I go.”
e all know about Rosie the Riveter,
the symbol of women who went
into the factories to do the work
during World War II when the men went to
war, but we know a lot less about “Rosie’s
daughters,” the generation of women who
have entered traditionally male jobs since the
passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which
included clauses making discrimination
against women illegal. These are the women
Jane Latour writes about in her book Sisters
in the Brotherhoods, which she talked about
last month at the Retiree Division’s program
celebrating Women’s History Month.
Latour, a former Teamster—she worked
in a UPS shop in New Jersey years ago—and
now an associate editor at DC 37’s Public Employee Press, began interviewing women in
1989 for a simple brochure, but she soon realized that she had the makings of a book. Published in 2008, Sisters in the Brotherhoods tells
about the struggles of 24 women who broke
the gender barrier to get jobs as ironworkers,
plumbers, stationary engineers, elevator mechanics, carpenters, electricians, firefighters,
truck drivers, and other blue-collar jobs in
New York City in the 1970s. One of the
women interviewed was a Teamster truck
driver. They told me to sit behind the wheel,
then told me, “Just drive,” she said.
Olivia Majette, a retired assistant housing
manager, asked why women wanted those
kinds of jobs. “For the money,” was Latour’s
first reason. “These jobs paid well, and they
needed money to support their families, especially as the number of single mothers
grew. But also, after the Civil Rights and
Women’s movements of the 60s, laws
changed, opening new opportunities, and
somebody had the walk through the door.
These women were pioneers. They wanted
to get out of the box, get a skill, learn a craft,
take on new challenges.”
Local 237 Recording Secretary Patricia
Stryker also spoke, and recalled experiences
she encountered with sexism as a lobbyist.
“Women have to speak up,” Stryker said.
”No one wants to share power, so we have
to grab it.”
Author Jane Latour signs copies of her book sisters in the brotherhood for retirees Bernice Judge
and Olivia Majette. Every copy was sold.
news & views april 2010_1 4/19/10 3:09 pM page 1
page 4
Local 237 on Radio, TV
Local 237 has taken its mission to the airwaves.
Tune in to hear President Greg Floyd discuss issues of importance to working families and retirees with top newsmakers.
Reaching Out with Greg Floyd, a half-hour
radio show on WWRL–AM 1600, is broadcast every second and fourth Saturday of the
month at 3 p.m.
Past guests have included Comptroller
John Liu, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio.
NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, U.S.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, NYCHA
Chairman John Rhea, and Teamsters President James P. Hoffa. Video highlights are
available on Local 237’s web site,
www.local237.org.
LOCAL 237: On the Air is our new cable–
TV series, available to all New York City
cable–TV subscribers. Several shows have
already been broadcast. Remaining air
times and channels are:
Staten Island Community Television (CTV)
Time Warner Ch.34 and Verizon Ch. 34:
Monday, April 19, at 8 p.m.; Tuesday, April
27, at 10 p.m.
Bronxnet
Cablevision Ch. 67 and Verizon Ch. 33
Tuesdays at 7 p.m.; Thursdays at 8 p.m.; Fridays at 7 p.m.
Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN)
Tuesday, May 4, at 6:30 p.m. on Time Warner Ch. 34, RCN Ch. 82 and Verizon Ch. 33,
Friday, April 16, at 9:30 p.m. on Time Warner Ch. 34, Verizon Ch. 34 and RCN Ch. 82
Brooklyn Community Access (BCAT):
Time Warner Ch. 35, Cablevision Ch. 68,
Verizon Ch. 43 and RCN Ch. 83
Tuesday, April 20, at 6:30 p.m.
For more information, check www.local237.org.
Check Out Medicare’s
Redesigned Web Site
www.medicare.gov
It’s clean and readable. The home
page has links to the most frequently used services, plus five dropdown menus that lead to anything
you need to know from Medicare.
retiree neWs & vieWs
april 2010
Retiree Personal Notes
Congratulations to Joseph Hayes on becoming a great-grandfather for the second time. The
newest addition, a boy, Naseem Zyair Kader, was born March 17 to Hayes’s granddaughter,
Naquesya, who is also the mother of his first great-grandchild, a girl, and the daughter of his
son, Joseph, Jr. . . . Birthday wishes and special greetings to Manny Kamaiko, who turned 98
last month . . . Happy 65th birthday to retired SSA Isabella Foster. She will soon be moving
to Birmingham, Alabama, her hometown.
* * *
The multitalented Pauline Rosenbaum recited poetry in a program sponsored by her downtown Manhattan neighborhood association last month. She chose mostly women poets, in
honor of Women’s History Month, but she threw in a bit of Ogden Nash, as well . . . NYCHA
retiree Elvira Rivera proudly attended the graduation of her son, Juan Carret, from
NYCHA’s and the union’s joint heating plant technician training program
Floyd Addresses NYC Alliance for Retired Americans
L
ocal 237 President Greg Floyd was a special guest speaker at the March membership meeting of the New York City Alliance
for Retired Americans.
Floyd noted that government leaders
want to strip away health coverage from retirees to solve budget deficits and balance
the budget. “Union leaders who would bargain away your coverage and benefits for a
few additional dollars for working members
are shortsighted, “ he said. “They don’t realize that the active workers, all of us, will be
retirees someday.”
Referring to elections, Floyd warned the
audience, “When a candidate campaigns on
taxcuts, ask, ‘How are they going to pay for
it?’ As you in this room know, it could be by
cutting your health coverage.”
Local 237 President Greg Floyd addresses the
New York City Alliance for Retired Americans.
Seated up front, l-r, are NYCARA treasurer
JayCee Holden, co-chair George Altomare, and
chairperson Stuart Leibowitz
Local 237 retiree Doris Welch, a member
of the NYCARA executive board, introduced
Floyd.
How to Continue Receiving Teamsters National Magazine
T
he Teamsters International in Washington, DC announced in the March issue of the Teamsters
magazine that it will no longer automatically mail the magazine to retirees, because of the expense involved. It said that Teamster retirees who would like to receive future issues should contact their locals. Write, call, or e-mail the Retiree Division with your name and address at Teamsters Local 237, 216 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011; 212-807-0555; retirees@local237.org.
RETIREE NEWS & VIEWS
216 West 14 Street
New York, NY 10011
Periodicals postage
paid at New York, NY
All kinds of information is available,
including a Physician and Other
Health Care Providers database
searchable by state and city, comparison of hospitals and nursing equipment, and other health information.
You can easily register for “My Medicare,” which pulls all your personal
information related to claims, health
and drug plans, providers, and more.
AFFILIATE OF THE
Alliance
for Retired
Americans
april 2010