[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 45 (Wednesday, April 16, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1603-H1609]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO THE LATE HONORABLE CHARLES A. HAYES OF ILLINOIS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Rush] is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. RUSH. Mr. Speaker, on last Monday I attended a funeral held in
Chicago, IL, a funeral, a home-grown service, for former Representative
Charles A. Hayes, a former Member of this body. At that funeral, Mr.
Speaker, at that home-grown ceremony, the many people from Chicago,
from the First Congressional District, from the State of Illinois,
indeed from this entire Nation came to Chicago to the Antioch
Missionary Baptist Church located on the south side of Chicago in the
First Congressional District to pay homage and give their final
respects to a giant within this Nation, a man who, despite tremendous
odds, was able to speak up, speak out, to stand for the little guy, the
working person, the disadvantaged, the poor persons of this Nation.
Mr. Speaker, Charles Hayes' history is unparalleled in the annals of
this Nation. His commitment to the working people, to poor people, to
people who needed to have a voice, his commitment was deep seated and
long lasting. When he was elected to Congress in 1984, representing the
First Congressional District of Illinois, he followed in the footsteps
of many giants who represented the First Congressional District, people
who, as he did, succeeded against some tremendous odds.
{time} 1800
Some of those Members were involved in this body passing legislation
that had an effect on making this Nation the great Nation that it is
today.
Oscar De Priest was the first African-American to be elected to
Congress since the Reconstruction. He came from the First Congressional
District. Following Oscar De Priest, we had Arthur Mitchell, the first
black Democrat to represent a district in this august body. Following
Oscar De Priest we had Congressman William L. Dawson who represented
this district for many, many years. Congressman Ralph Metcalf
represented this district. Congressman Harold Washington. Congressman
Benny Stewart. They all represented this district.
When Charlie Hayes was elected to succeed Congressman Harold
Washington, who was elected the first black mayor of the city of
Chicago, he immediately began to pick up the baton and to carry forth
the battle for equality and justice and fairness within this Nation and
within this body.
Charlie was well prepared for this task. Going back many, many years,
he had prepared himself for this task. Charlie Hayes, as far back as
1938, after he found employment at a little hardware store in Cairo,
IL, making 15 cents an hour, Charlie was sensitive enough,
understanding enough that he noticed the blatant racism that existed at
that plant where black workers faced insults, indignation, and were
forced to work in the lowest-paying and least desirable positions. The
black workers did what most workers did at that time. They formed an
union, a local union which was later recognized by the company as the
Carpenter's Local Union 1424, and Charlie Hayes was elected president
at the age of 20 years old.
This action, this standing up for the downtrodden, the poor, the
oppressed, started him on his long career of social action and concern
for people and their rights as Americans.
Mr. Speaker, I have many, many things I want to say about Charlie
Hayes, but I am joined at this moment by the outstanding Member of this
House from Illinois' Third Congressional District, a colleague of
Charlie Hayes, Congressman Bill Lipinski.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for
recognizing me, and I want to thank him very much as a fellow Chicagoan
for taking this special order for Charlie Hayes.
I do have a few things I want to talk about in regards to Charlie.
Charlie arrived here in the House of Representatives about 6 months
after I did, and he will always be remembered to me as Mr. Regular
Order. As everybody knows, he became quite famous for that.
But not only did he arrive here 6 months after I arrived, but he was
a commuter Congressman like I am, like the gentleman from Illinois [Mr.
Rush] is, flying back and forth every week between Chicago and
Washington DC. On many of those occasions Charlie and I sat together,
and we had some enormously interesting conversations about organized
labor and the labor movement in this country in the 1930's and the
1940's, 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, and up until the 1980's when Charlie
left organized labor and started to represent the people here in
Washington.
We also talked about his very, very good friend, the first African-
American mayor of the city of Chicago, the Honorable Harold Washington.
Obviously Charlie was very much involved in Harold Washington becoming
mayor of the city of Chicago, but beyond that, he and Harold were very
good friends, and he always was there to help Harold, protect Harold,
and speak in Harold's behalf.
Besides having conversations about organized labor and the labor
movement in this country and Harold Washington, Charlie Hayes and I
were both great baseball fans, great fans of the Chicago White Sox, and
on numerous occasions we discussed White Sox ball players of the past.
I think that it is really fitting and proper that we have a special
order today for Charlie Hayes on the day that we passed the resolution
for Jackie Robinson.
Ironically, the African-American ball player that Charlie Hayes often
talked about was not Jackie Robinson, but Larry Doby. Larry Doby was
the first African-American ball player in the American League.
Ironically, that occurred on July 15, 1947, a couple of months after
Jackie Robinson had broken it.
I say ironically because Larry Doby pinch hit for the Cleveland
Indians against the Chicago White Sox on that day. He did not start the
game, there was really no fanfare that he was going to play that day,
but in the seventh inning he came out as a pinch hitter.
Charlie Hayes happened to be in the ballpark that day and I happened
to be in the ballpark that day also. My mother had taken my brother and
I, my cousin, Pat Collins and my cousin Jim Collins to the ball game,
and we were not aware, obviously, that we were going to be there on
such a historical day. But nevertheless we were there, and as I say, I
later discovered that Charlie was there also.
So besides baseball and Harold Washington and organized labor, there
were other things that Charlie and I talked about on these plane rides
back and forth.
The last one I would mention would be his youth center which I am
quite sure you are very familiar with, and I think anyone that ever
talked to Charlie would be familiar with because he was extremely proud
of it. But it was always in great financial need, and there was more
than one occasion when Charlie implored me to be a little bit generous
towards his youth center, which fortunately I was in a position to be
generous to his youth center on a couple of different occasions.
But Charlie was a very down-to-earth person, he was a very unassuming
person. He was a very, very hard-working man, and he was really kind I
think to a fault.
The only time I ever saw Charlie get angry was when people were
somehow angling to do or doing something to give organized labor, the
American working man and woman, the short end of the stick. That is
when Charlie became angry and really angry, because I
[[Page H1604]]
believe that for his entire life, as the gentleman mentioned earlier,
he was always speaking for, supporting and fighting for the American
working men and women in this country.
He was a very good friend of mine, and I am honored to have been a
friend of his, and I am honored to have served in this House with him.
I do not think that we could find an individual in the history of the
House of Representatives that was ever any more effective for his
constituents or a greater fighter for organized labor and the American
working man and woman than Charlie Hayes.
I thank the gentleman for taking this special order and allowing me
to participate in this tribute to Charlie Hayes, my good friend, Mr.
Regular Order.
Mr. RUSH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his words of
memorialization for Congressman Charlie Hayes. I share the gentleman's
sentiment and his sincerity and his outlook. I share the gentleman's
admiration for this giant.
Mr. Speaker, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus has
come into the Chamber and she also served with Charlie Hayes. Mr.
Speaker, I just want to say that the gentlewoman from California [Ms.
Waters] took time out from her very, very busy schedule, both as an
outstanding Congresswoman from her district in California and also as
the chairperson of the Congressional Black Caucus, she took the time
out from her busy schedule to come in to Chicago to attend the home-
born services for Charlie Hayes.
Mr. Speaker, at this point in time I would like to recognize the
gentlewoman for her remarks.
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I would like to
commend the gentleman for organizing this effort on the floor together
to make sure that we do the proper thing by Charlie Hayes. I would also
like to commend the gentleman for his role and his presence at the
funeral in Chicago that I did attend.
Of course, not only was the gentleman there, the other members of the
delegation were present there all paying their last respects in
recognition of the important role that he played not only in this
Congress, but certainly in the overall community of Chicago, IL.
To a person when we were there, each one got up and they had
wonderful things to say about him. They talked about his early days in
the labor movement. They talked about the fact that he started as just
a worker in the meat-packing company, and he started organizing there,
and he went on in organized labor to become the vice president of the
food and commercial workers.
At each step of the way, however, he was organizing, working, not
only fighting for the average worker to have better wages and benefits
and vacations and pensions, but he was fighting to make sure that
African-Americans had a real role in the labor movement.
When he became the vice chair or international vice president of the
food and commercial workers, it was unheard of, and it was quite an
accomplishment. But he used his power and he used all that he had
gained working in the labor movement to help others.
Everybody talked about the fact that he stood side by side with Dr.
Martin Luther King. Not only did he march with him, he raised money for
him. He was a real civil rights worker. Not only was he a labor
organizer and a civil rights worker, he was a legislator who not only
talked about what he would like to see for the average human being, the
average person, he came here and he worked for it.
His legislation actually identified his priorities, working certainly
on behalf of working people. All of the jokes that were told at the
funeral about whatever you said to Charlie, he would always answer, a
job would take care of that. That was his answer, because he knew the
importance of every person who had the opportunity to work, to earn a
living, what that meant for them and their families.
So I am proud to stand on this floor, and I am proud to have known
him. He certainly represented labor in ways that very few have and can.
He was able to represent them because he was a part of them in more
ways than many of us will ever, ever understand or get to be ourselves.
{time} 1815
So he has gone on, but I remember first noticing him on this floor
when he would sit in the back of the room and witness the proceedings,
and then there were those who would take advantage of the system and
try to speak beyond their allotted time or disrespect the rules.
Then you would hear this roar of ``Regular order, Mr. Speaker.'' And
everything would come to a standstill, and people would get back on
track, because, really, the person who had anointed himself as the real
keeper of the proceedings of this House had spoken.
So we are going to miss the roar, we are going to miss the sound, and
we have missed him for quite some time now. Charlie can rest in peace,
because he did his work here on Earth. He gave to others, and even as
he was in his last days, the stories about the work that he was doing
at the hospital there, where he was serving as a patient advocate for
the people who were ill and trying to comfort them and look out for
their affairs, is something that very few people would ever do when
they, certainly, were on their way out.
So I would just like to say thank you for taking out this time, for
allowing us to get up on this floor and give recognition to a great
legislator, a great leader, and a great human being.
Mr. RUSH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California [Ms.
Waters]. I would also like to make note for the Record that I know the
gentlewoman was on the other side of town, and she told me on the
floor, as soon as you start I want to stop whatever I am doing and take
the long trip back and make sure I have my remarks on behalf of
Charlie. I certainly appreciate that, the Hayes family appreciates it,
and certainly the people of the city of Chicago appreciate this and the
gentlewoman's other work.
Mr. Speaker, we are joined now by a freshman, a freshman in the House
but not a freshman in the fight, a man who comes to this Congress with
outstanding achievements of his own, achievements that he has secured
in the fight for social and economic justice in this Nation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from the Seventh District of
Illinois, Mr. Danny K. Davis.
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding to me. I would like to take this opportunity to express my
appreciation to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Rush] for having
organized this time and these proceedings.
I am very pleased to join with those from around the country and
across America who have stood to pay tribute to Charlie Hayes. Charles
Hayes, who came from Cairo, IL, rural America, to the slaughter houses
of Chicago, on the packing floor, cutting meat, becoming a member of
the Meat Cutters Union, who worked his way from rural Cairo to the
hallowed Halls of this Congress; who, along the way, never faltered,
never stopped, never had any doubt about what he was going to do.
Charlie Hayes represented I think the best of the I can spirit, the I
will spirit, knowing full well that once he set his mind to a task, he
would do it.
Many people have talked about Charlie's contributions after having
become a Member of Congress. But the real Charlie Hayes was the Charlie
Hayes who was involved in untold struggles long before he reached the
point of having the opportunity to represent that great congressional
district that was represented by stalwarts: the first African-American
elected to the U.S. Congress after the period of Reconstruction, Oscar
DePriest, represented that district; William Dawson; Ralph Metcalf; the
great Harold Washington; and then Charlie Hayes; and of course the
current representative, the current Congressman from the First
District, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Bobby Rush.
So Charlie fit right in the middle of all these giants, all of these
individuals who have been a part of history, all of these individuals
who have been makers of history. I always appreciated Charlie because
in Chicago politics is rough and tumble; always has been, perhaps
always will be. There are always those who are on the sidelines, always
afraid to really take a swipe at the tough issues, the tough calls. But
Charlie always made the tough ones, always made the heavy ones.
I remember the times when Charlie Hayes, Addie Wyatt, Theodore Dows,
a
[[Page H1605]]
few of the individuals were key movers in the civil rights movement in
Chicago. You could always count on Charlie to be there with his voice,
with his money, with his time, and with his courage.
So I say, Charlie, you fought the good fight. Yes, you have done your
job, just like the village blacksmith with your big hands, your big
voice, your big muscles. You have represented well the people not only
of the First District of Illinois, but working men and women all over
America and throughout the world.
MR. RUSH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks.
Mr. Speaker, next I will ask another Member of this body who served
with Charlie Hayes, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Glenn Poshard, who
represents a district that has much similarity to the First
Congressional District. He knows the fights of working people in this
country.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Poshard] for
his remarks memorializing Charlie Hayes.
Mr. POSHARD. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend for this special
order for the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hayes].
Mr. Speaker, I served with Charlie on the Committee on Education and
Labor when I first came here to the House of Representatives, and also
on the Committee on Small Business. I spent a lot of hours with Charlie
over the years, talking to him about various issues.
But a lot of times we talked about where Charlie grew up in Cairo,
IL, because that was part of my district at the time, and is still very
close to my district. I think because of where Charlie grew up, he had
a great affinity for the working people of this country, and especially
for the poor people of this country. Charlie's voice was always there
for those folks.
I do not know if people know it, but Charlie also had a great love
for the coal miners of the State of IL, Bobby, I have to tell you this,
because one time I held a hearing in Benton, Illinois, on black lung
disease, which is a disease that our coal miners get from going down
into the mines and working below surface and having the coal dust
accumulate in their lungs and so on.
We were just beginning the hearing and a large bus drove up outside
the gymnasium in Benton, IL where we were having the hearing, and
Charlie had brought down, 300 miles from Chicago, had brought a whole
group of folks from his district who were older men at that time who
had worked in the mines at one time in southern central Illinois, and
who had black lung disease and who had moved to the city. But he
brought them 300 miles to that hearing, so their voice could be heard
with his.
That impressed everyone in our communities, because that is how much
Charlie really cared, I think, for people, for working men and women
across the country.
I have sat right over here on this floor and talked to him many times
when the confusion and the chaos got a little heavy in the Chamber, and
you would always hear that loud voice boom out, ``Regular order,'' and
things would settle down.
He was a great guy and he was a great White Sox fan, and we talked a
lot of baseball, too, as the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Lipinski] had
referenced earlier.
I had a little time last night after I finished up some work over in
the office. I get kidded a lot around here because I like poetry, and I
wrote a little memorial poem for Charlie. It is not grand poetry, but
then Charlie would not have appreciated grand poetry. But it is sort of
how I felt about him, and I entitled it ``Regular Order.''
``When Charlie moved regular order
The Chamber settled down
Voices hushed, the Speaker blushed
Back benchers wore a frown
Many of us knew that voice
When raised in earlier days
For workers who had no voice
To change their burdened ways
From Cairo on the quiet river banks
To Chicago on Lake Michigan's shore
Charlie roamed the Prairie State
Defending the weak and the poor.
Carpenters, miners
All were Charlie's friends
Meat cutters, food workers,
They were Charlie's kin
Justice in the factories
Justice in the plants
He organized women and men
To stand up for themselves
To receive their fair share
Their family's future to defend
It broke Charlie's heart
And he never would rest
When young people dropped out of school.
Until he found a way
To help them stay
To learn to play by the rules.
Charlie walked the path of life
And disturbed our conscience each day.
He wouldn't let stand the wrongs he saw
And he wouldn't let us turn away.
Today we celebrate 50 years of
Robinson's remarkable feat
And when Charlie crossed the threshold
Jackie was there to greet
``Charlie,'' he said, ``I opened the door with both my bat
and my glove''
But before my day, you showed us the way
To give justice a gentle shove.
``Charlie,'' it's just a pick-up game over on St. Peter's Lot
We're in the fifth
The competition is stiff
Don't know if we'll win or not.
``But we've lost our ump
And confusion reigns out on the field of play
Could you help us out
Call the balls and strikes
Help us save the day.''
Charlie smiled that great broad grin
Strolled with Jackie to the edge of the field
For just a moment he surveyed the mess
Then confidently crossed the border.
The arguments stopped, the game resumed
When Charlie yelled ``regular order.''
Well, it is just a little poem, but it is the way I felt about
Charlie. That is the way I saw it.
Mr. RUSH. Very appropriate. Thank you so much for sharing that with
us. That is a grand, in Charlie's style, that is a grand, grand poem.
Thank you very so very much.
Mr. Speaker, we have bipartisan words of memorialization for our
fallen colleague.
I yield to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hastert] the majority
whip, another colleague of Congressman Hayes, who has asked to be
allowed to give some remarks and his reflection of the outstanding
individual, Charles A. Hayes.
Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman from Chicago. I just have to say
that we cannot think of Charlie without that big smile and the
gentleness that he had, the love that he had for this body, and the
reflection that he had on the long road it took to get here from a very
humble beginning; a person who came, as was said before, from southern
Illinois, from rural southern Illinois, came to the big city, the city
that Carl Sandburg talked about, the stacker of wheat and the layer of
railroads and the hog butcher of the world.
{time} 1830
That is where Charlie found his beginning, his real economic start in
life where he did work in those stockyards in the hog butcher center of
the world, that is what he did, something that was not the most
wonderful beginning, was not the top job on the economic platform, but
Charlie did that. He was proud of it. He was proud of his heritage,
proud of what he did. He was proud of his union movement.
The role that he played in the union movement in Chicago in the meat
cutters union, he would talk about it. He believed in it, and he served
that way. And through that service came to this body through a
circuitous route. He was certainly a good man. He was a gentle man.
I remember Charlie, if you were in the Illinois delegation, flying
back and forth together. At that time we flew and Charlie was there, we
flew to Midway Airport, Midway Airlines. Those were small planes and
many times Members of the delegation, we just got bottled up together.
Sometimes the flight was canceled. We would sit in the waiting rooms
for hours and talk. And Charlie would talk about his heritage, about
his beginning, about the people he served and his grandchildren. He
loved his grandchildren, loved his family.
And he will be missed in the hearts of Members who served with him in
this body. He will be missed certainly among his family and those
people that he served. But Charlie does not have to worry. His legacy
will live on. It will live on with the people that he served, who he
worked with, it will live on among the people that he served, his
constituents, and certainly it will live on with the Members he served
with here in this body.
He was a wonderful man. We mourn his passing, but we certainly
celebrate
[[Page H1606]]
his life. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
Mr. RUSH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
We have the gentleman from New York, Mr. Owens, who also served as a
colleague of Congressman Charlie Hayes and who shared some of his ideas
about the world and ideas about labor, the esteemed Member from the
State of New York Mr. Major Owens.
Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman for taking out this
special order.
Charlie was my friend. Charlie was, you could say, a member of our
class, because I came in one year and that was the year that Harold
Washington got elected as mayor of Chicago and Harold Washington was a
Congressman at that time and he was replaced by Charlie Hayes the next
year. So Charlie was close to our class.
We called him ``regular order Charlie,'' as you heard before. He had
a capacity to have a big booming voice leap up and rise up to the
ceiling and come crashing back down on all of us, Republicans and
Democrats, and it brought a kind of order and harmony on an
instantaneous basis when he did it.
Charlie was a great human being. Charlie was a labor leader. Charlie
was a working man. Charlie knew it from the pits up. Charlie was
probably not quite old enough to be my father, but he reminded me a
great deal of my father, who was a very strong advocate of unions. And
of course, my father was a working man who saw a great deal of
necessity for unions in order for workers to survive with some kind of
dignity. My father never worked on the job where he got paid more than
the minimum wage. So he appreciated the Government. He appreciated the
fact that the Government set the minimum wage because that is all he
ever made.
My father worked in a glue factory in the meal department where he
did gluing. He had big hands like Charlie Hayes, and the hands were
sort of glazed over with glue. I used to look at Charlie's big hands
and they had some scars on them similar to the kind of scars my father
had on his hands. Charlie, after all, did most of his life in the
working world as a meat packer. Meat packing is a rough business. They
might have streamlined it more now, but it was quite rough.
He used to talk about people losing fingers, losing hands, losing
arms. It was an area where the rate of injury was quite great.
Charlie would not need anybody to tell him how important OSHA is, the
Occupational Health and Safety Administration, which is now under
attack. And I have spent 4 hours today in a hearing as part of the
attack on OSHA. Charlie would need nobody to tell him how important
OSHA is. He was there in the plant, right there, and he knew how
necessary it was for the Government to intervene, for there to be rules
and regulations to stop the slaughter of people, to stop the limbs
being cut off, stop the high rate of accidents. He understood it as
nobody else could understand it. He understood it the way my father
understood it.
I suppose all Democrats would say that they understand what unions
are all about, what working people are all about. It is like the
baggage that Democrats feel they have to carry as part of their package
to validate themselves as Democrats. But there are not many Democrats
nowadays who have the passion, who understand that the working people
of the world, working people of this country are our people. They are
the people we represent first and foremost.
You have to explain too much around here these days when it comes to
an issue related to working people. OSHA is under attack because of the
fact that there is a perception that it belongs to the unions, it is
something that unions created and that unions are not very popular and
that we should go out and dismantle some of the kinds of regulatory
agencies that were set up to protect workers.
Not only is OSHA under attack, but you have the comp time bill that
is before us now that passed the House, and the Senate has to act on
it.
You would not have to explain to Charlie Hayes what is going on when
you talk about taking away people's cash payments for overtime. Charlie
Hayes would understand that readily. My father, overtime was the one
time that he got above the minimum wage, when they had to pay overtime.
Of course, usually in the plant where my father worked if you paid
overtime 1 week or 2 weeks, down the road you were going to get laid
off a long time. So you really did not get ahead of the game because
the layoffs were always there.
I cannot think of a single year my father worked that he did not have
layoffs. And Charlie would understand that you need cash to put bread
on the table. You need cash to put shoes on the feet of your children.
The kind of arguments you hear now about comptime versus overtime are
the arguments that are coming from upper class, middle income workers,
often workers, two in a family, doing very well, who want more time off
with their children and for other purposes. That is all very well. But
the proposal that I put on the table here, an amendment which said, OK,
let us do it, let us do something for everybody. Those people who want
comptime off and they do not want the Fair Labor Standards Act to stop
their boss from being more flexible in terms of giving them time off,
let them have it.
But that is only about one-third of the work force. Two-thirds of the
work force make less than $10 an hour. The people who are making less
than $10 an hour, they want cash. They need cash. The standard of
living that they have will be affected greatly if they do not have the
cash.
Charlie Hayes would have been a passionate advocate for that. He
would not have to have long explanations.
It sort of took us a long time to get started on understanding how
detrimental to working class people the comptime bill is. Among
Democrats, they were off to a slow start. Even some of the labor
leaders I do not think had been in the trenches as much as Charlie
Hayes had been.
Charlie made a beeline straight for the Education and Labor Committee
when he came here. He and I had that in common. I found that when I got
here and I wanted to serve on the Education and Labor Committee, I
remember when I talked to Tip O'Neill and he said, what do you want? I
said, I want to be on Education and Labor. He chuckled, because
Education and Labor had many slots. Nobody was dying to get on the
Education and Labor Committee.
Charlie was one of the few who came in and headed straight for
Education and Labor, as I did, because my colleagues who were more
sophisticated in my freshman class said, why do you want to get on
Education and Labor? There is no money there. We are right back to the
old issue of raising money for campaigns. You cannot raise any money
for your campaigns on Education and Labor. A handful of unions have to
stretch themselves out. They cannot give you that much. Children and
education, they certainly cannot help you very much, only two teachers
unions. They explained it all to me.
But I headed straight for the Education and Labor Committee. I have
been there for the whole 14 years that I am here. I have never tried to
get on another committee. I think it is very important.
Charlie felt the same way. There was no place for Charlie Hayes to be
except on the Committee on Education and Labor. The first bill he
introduced was similar to the first bill I introduced. The first bill,
I knew it was not going anywhere, but I thought it was very important.
I introduced a bill that said that the right to a job opportunity
should be guaranteed to every American, the right to a job opportunity.
What is so radical about that? Why cannot this very prosperous Nation
move in the direction of guaranteeing a job opportunity for every
American who wants to work?
And when the job opportunities are not there in the private sector,
why cannot the Government step in as it did in the Depression?
The WPA and the various instruments that were used by Franklin
Roosevelt to create jobs are very real in my mind. Because my father
never forgot, he never forgot that all those months of not being
employed were ended when the WPA came along. He never forgot Roosevelt.
Roosevelt was like a god in my house; and among working people,
Roosevelt was like a god. Charlie Hayes
[[Page H1607]]
looked at Roosevelt like a god. And the first bill he introduced was
the reinstatement of Franklin Roosevelt's bill of rights for workers,
human rights.
People talk about human rights. It is not only the Chinese who say
that human rights ought to mean that we always have enough to eat.
Human rights ought to mean we always have employment. Human rights
ought to mean that we have housing.
That is not a radical idea that the Chinese Communists have to push
forward. Franklin Roosevelt set it forth very early in his New Deal. He
did not get all of his New Deal passed, unfortunately, so we did not
have any guarantees to jobs. But of course, due to Franklin Roosevelt,
we did have jobs.
First of all, they created jobs for the Government; and later the war
came along and the issue of jobs was taken off the table because there
was plenty of work during World War II. But Charlie reinstated, picked
up where Roosevelt had left off.
And part of the Roosevelt set of rights was a right to healthcare.
Universal healthcare is not a radical idea, and Charlie's first bill
laid out all of those rights that Franklin Roosevelt had set forth.
Charlie would understand right away that our failure to pass the
healthcare bill here was a major defeat. And we wonder why working
people turn off out there, why so many people feel desperate, feel that
working hard in the political arena is futile.
Nobody is even addressing their needs anymore. We have got 40 million
Americans who are not covered by healthcare, 40 million Americans. And
all we are talking about here is a show, we may put on a show in this
Congress to cover 5 million children. Of the 40 million Americans not
covered, at least 10 million are children.
So we are going to show the world that we have a heart somewhere
underneath all this talk about millions and millions of dollars being
raised for campaigns and the cruelty of trying to wipe out OSHA and
trying to wipe out unions and institute a team act and various kinds of
other things that are aimed at working people; underneath all that we
want to show we got a heart.
So what are we going to do? We are proposing to provide healthcare
for 5 million of the 10 million children. If we really care about
children, why not all children? Why can we not come out of the 105th
Congress with at least 10 million children covered if we cannot have
universal healthcare and cover all the 40 million who are not covered?
Charlie would have been angry about this deep in his bones, and
Charlie would have been a great asset in moving to get this kind of
healthcare coverage. Charlie would certainly be very angry about some
of the bills that are before our committee right now.
He sat right next to me in the Education and Labor Committee, which
the name has changed now, I want the people to know. The Republican
majority took over; and the word ``labor'' they hate so much, they
would not even put the word ``labor'' in the committee name. It was
changed to Economic and Educational Opportunities. That was the first
name change.
Then now this year when the Republican majority got reelected, they
decided that since people out there are very upset and they want
education and they have to change their whole attitude toward
education, then they put education back in the title. It is Education
and the Workforce now, but not labor.
I think Charlie would understand the implications of that and be very
upset about it. But, also, some of the first hearings that we had in
the committee are hearings directed at the destruction of organized
labor.
That is Charlie's bread and butter, Charlie's career. He was first
and foremost a leader of organized labor. He was a union man, a union
executive. He probably outranks any person who has come to this Chamber
in terms of his credentials as a union person.
So he would be very upset that the team act now is one of the first
acts that the Senate has on its agenda and the House has on its agenda.
The team act says it is the employer, boss, management can go and
pick the people they want among the employees to form some kind of
management committee, team of management and employees; and they will
do what the collective bargaining process usually does, determine the
working conditions and deal with the employees.
They can only do this in places that do not now have unions. Which
means, if they were allowed to do that, in violation of present labor
relations law, they would guarantee that those places will never have
unions, independent unions. The team would smother everybody out.
It is very hard right now to organize labor unions, harder than it
was in the days that Charlie talked about. He used to talk about the
knock-them-up-side-the-head days, where it was dangerous to organize.
He used to go all over the country as food and commercial workers;
and as one of the leading people in the meat cutters union, he used to
go all over the country.
In the South he got into a lot of trouble, and he used to talk about
his adventures and how dangerous it was and he got in a lot of
situations where his life was in danger.
Mr. RUSH. If the gentleman would yield for just a moment, would the
gentleman please expound on how he thinks that Congressman Hayes would
have felt about welfare reform and the onerous effect that it has on
people, particularly welfare reform without even the possibility,
remote possibility, of getting a job?
{time} 1845
Mr. OWENS. I think Charlie would immediately understand that welfare
reform was not reform. It was an attack again on working people, on
poor people, people that do not work but who are aspiring to become
working people, people who are working but lose their job and they fall
back into the welfare. Workers who are unemployed and need food stamps.
Nobody would have to explain anything to Charlie about the
devastating impact of the welfare reform. I am sure that in his last
days, his knowledge of what had happened did not help at all in terms
of how he felt about this country, where the country is moving. I am
sure he was quite upset by the welfare reform and the fact we had this
attack on the working class, attack on people in a way which really
goes at the heart of survival.
We cannot survive unless we have something to eat. We cannot survive
unless we have a place to stay. And the attack on welfare was an
attack, of course, also on children, because welfare is mainly aid to
dependent children. They obscure the fact that only families with
children receive aid to dependent children. That is the basic program.
The food stamps was broadened so that everybody who was in need was
covered, including working people who had lost their jobs and are
heavily dependent on food stamps.
I think he would understand that we suffered a grave defeat and
setback, and as a New Dealer, a man who admired Roosevelt, I am sure it
would have pained him as greatly as it pained some of us that we lost
an entitlement. That entitlement, the Federal responsibility for the
poorest people, where any poor person in the Nation who met the
criteria or the means test and showed that they were really poor, the
Federal Government said that they would have enough to eat, that they
would have a place to stay.
That is what welfare was all about, and it mainly said to children
that they would have an opportunity to survive. That is gone. What we
have now is the Federal Government participating in a program which
goes to the States. But the Federal Government does not have the
obligation anymore. It is a matter of giving the States the money and
attaching conditions to that money. But that can all change.
There is no law which says that the Federal Government has to do
this. There is no law which says that any person is entitled. And many
people who are poor, of course, at the State level, when the State runs
out of money, they will say, ``We are out of money. People do not have
an entitlement. We do not have to do it.'' The Federal Government would
print or borrow more money, whatever is necessary. They would provide
because the entitlement was there for everybody who needed it.
So Charlie Hayes would not have been happy if he was in the 104th
Congress. He would not be happy about the way the 105th Congress has
started. But his spirit lives on. And we are not
[[Page H1608]]
beggars. We are the majority. The working people of this country are
still the majority.
A lot of people thinking they had fled into the middle class find
themselves, in a quick turn of fate economically, that they are right
back in the same arena economically as the large number of working
people. We are the majority. When we put all the people together, and
they understand a majority, we can make laws in this country which are
reasonable and fair and do not attempt to wipe out working people and
the benefits that we have labored so hard to create for working people.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for taking out this
special order. It is my great delight to salute the spirit of Charlie
Hayes. Regular order will go on and on, and we will all work to help
keep his spirit alive.
Mr. RUSH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his eloquent and
outstanding remarks. His remarks certainly captured Charlie Hayes and
captured the plight of working people, both in the days of Charlie
Hayes and also the working people in their plight today as we speak on
this floor.
Mr. Speaker, much has been said about Charlie Hayes, much has been
said about the kind of leader that he was; not only as a labor leader,
as a political leader, but also as a community leader.
Mr. Speaker, his leadership goes back as far as, as I indicated
earlier, 1938, when he originally started organizing a group of workers
at the E.L. Bruce Flooring Company in Cairo, IL, and how at the tender
age of 20 he became the president of the local, Local 1424.
Mr. Speaker, we jump to 1942, and he had moved to Chicago and an
uncle helped Charlie land a job as a fresh pork laborer at Wilson & Co.
there in Chicago at the old stockyard, and he soon became a leader in a
long and bitter struggle which culminated in 1944 with the recognition
of Local 25 of the United Packing House Workers of America as the
official bargaining unit for 3,500 Wilson workers; black workers and
white workers and Hispanic workers and Asian workers.
This effort marked the beginning of an end to segregated facilities
and discriminatory hiring and promotion practices that were pervasive
there at that particular plant.
In the 1948 packing house workers' strike at Wilson & Co. Charlie was
framed on charges of violence and was fired. He won reinstatement as
the result of the National Labor Relations Board arbitration in 1949.
By then he had, in the interim, accepted a position to represent the
union's 35,000 employees in district 1 as the international field
representative, where he led successful fights for job benefits,
including paid sick leave and vacations and holidays.
In 1954 he was elected director of district 1 of the United Packing
House Workers of America, and he again, with his energy and his resolve
and his commitment and his dedication and his courage, he had an
immediate long-term and far-reaching impact on the American labor
movement.
We can go on and on and on. Chicago was known to have historically
troublesome racial relationships, and there was a riot in 1949 in
Chicago at Trumbull Park Homes there, and Charlie led the effort to
raise money for those families that were in critical and crisis
situations as a result of the race riot there in Trumbull Park.
Also, during this same period of time, Charlie Hayes led the charge
to raise money to assist in the prosecution of the murderers of Emmet
Till, a young African-American from the South Side of Chicago who had
ventured down to Mississippi and was found murdered, floating in a
river. Charlie Hayes was moved and used his position in the labor
movement, took up the call, involved himself in a fight that was highly
controversial and certainly not within the purview of a defined role
for a labor leader.
Charlie Hayes, when the AFL-CIO emerged in 1955, he became the
international vice president and director of district 12, representing
a union which was at that time the largest labor union in this Nation,
representing 500,000 members. He became the vice president because he
was unparalleled in terms of his courage and in terms of his
commitment.
Mr. Speaker, the civil rights movement, this movement that saw black
Americans and white Americans and others come together to talk about
basic civil rights for all Americans, this movement that was
spearheaded in the South by Dr. Martin Luther King and others, this
movement that captured the imagination of this Nation because it showed
this Nation that there was a part of this Nation where just basic
rights, rights to public accommodation, rights to vote, just rights to
speak up and stand up, even a right to ride on public transportation in
the front, where this was a right that was not shared by many citizens
of this Nation, Charlie Hayes took up the call, took up the charge,
raised money, provided support, critical support for Dr. King and the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference in their fight for equal
rights.
Mr. Speaker, I can go on and on and on, but let me wind up this
particular special order. Charlie Hayes was a civil rights leader,
labor leader, political leader, but he was also a devoted family man, a
devoted husband. His wife Emma passed in 1973. Charlie Hayes' family,
his children, Charlene and Barbara, and his grandchildren, all have in
their father, in their grandfather a man who is a role model for all in
this world, for all in this Nation.
This man who came from the killing floors of a packinghouse, who came
through the labor movement, who served here in this country will always
be held in the highest of esteem by all freedom loving people of the
world, and his example serves as a sterling example and a beacon for
all of us who are fighting to end discrimination of all types and are
fighting for a world where all people can have equal rights and
justice.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with fellow
colleagues to express our honor and respect at the passing of a former
Member of this body, Congressman Charles Arthur Hayes.
There is a lot that we could say about the late Honorable Charles
Arthur Hayes, but a day or a week, not even a month would allow us
enough time to express all that Congressman Charlie Hayes was to the
city of Chicago, to the First Congressional District of Illinois which
he represented, to the Congress of the United States, and to the
working men and women of this country.
When colleagues of Congressman Hayes would rise to speak on labor
issues, they would have to remember that a member of labor was among
them. After more than 45 years as a trade unionist, Congressman Charlie
Hayes was the congressional expert of labor issues.
In the depths of the Great Depression, Charlie Hayes graduated from
Sumner High School and began work with the Civilian Conservation Corps
to plant trees on the banks of the Mississippi River.
Charlie Hayes began his long labor career after returning to work in
his home town of Cairo, IL. He worked at the E.L. Bruce Hardwood
Flooring Co. as a machine operator and helped to organize local No.
1424 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and
served as its president from 1940 to 1942.
In 1943 he joined the grievance committee of the United Packing House
Workers of America (UPWA) and served as district director for the
UPWA's District One from 1954 until 1968, when he became a district
director and an international vice president of the newly merged
packing house and meat cutters' union.
After 40 years of laboring in the vineyard, Charlie Hayes retired as
vice president and director of region 12 of the United Food and
Commercial Workers International Union in September of 1983.
But a man like Charlie Hayes, who had worked most of his life on the
front line of workers' rights, found retirement to be just a bit too
slow a pace.
In April 1983, the Congressional seat for the First District of
Illinois became open with the resignation of Harold Washington. Retired
Charlie Hayes was then ready to go back to work, but now on the behalf
of the residents of the First Congressional District of Illinois.
Congressman Hayes represented the people of the First District
located in the city of Chicago, IL. The First District of Illinois
includes about half of Chicago's South Side black community.
The South Side of Chicago had been the Nation's largest black
community for nearly a century, until redistricting earlier in the
1990's.
The area's demographic statistics however, do not speak to the love
Charlie Hayes had for the people of Chicago, and especially for the
people of the First Congressional District.
Chicago, and especially the working men and women of the First
Congressional District
[[Page H1609]]
of Illinois, needed the hands, heart, and devotion of a committed
warrior in the well of the House of Representatives.
They found all that they needed and much more in the person of
Charles Arthur Hayes.
Congressman Hayes came to Washington, DC to work--and that is exactly
what he did.
Congressman Hayes served on the Committee on Education and Labor and
the Small Business Committee.
He introduced several pieces of legislation to address the
educational and employment needs of many Americans. Prominent among
these are acts to encourage school drop-outs to reenter and complete
their education and to provide disadvantaged young people with job
training and support services. Hayes also sponsored bills to reduce
high unemployment rates and make it easier for municipalities to offer
affordable utility rates through the purchase of local utility
companies.
I offer my sympathy and best regards to the family, friends, and
colleagues of Congressman Charlie Hayes.
His life's record is a statement of public service.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to one of the
original leaders of the American civil rights movement, a lifetime
advocate of the American worker, and a true crusader for social justice
and racial equality: Charles Arthur Hayes. Charlie was a dear friend, a
respected colleague, and a trusted ally. He will be deeply missed.
When Harold Washington announced his endorsement of Charles Hayes to
replace him in the U.S. House of Representatives, Washington said that
``[Hayes] has shown unparalleled leadership and ability to unite
blacks, whites and Hispanics into organized coalitions fighting for
economic, political, and social justice.'' This is a role Hayes played
throughout his life and during his entire tenure in Congress.
As we remember Hayes, it is important to look back on his lifetime of
work so that we might truly appreciate what it was that be brought to
the House of Representatives and the Congressional Black Caucus.
A tireless labor leader and a champion of racial equality, Hayes was
the first vice president of a labor union to become a Member of
Congress. He joined the labor movement in the 1930's after his
graduation from high school. As a young machine operator in 1938 he
organized a strike by black workers in a hardwood flooring company that
lasted 6 weeks. The workers won--not a surprise given that Hayes was
their leader. Hayes organized the group into a carpenters' local and
became its president. Soon afterward, Hayes moved to Chicago's south
side and organized black workers in meat-packing plants into a United
Packing house Workers local. He was the key figure in the desegregation
of meat-packing plants and also fought successfully for equal pay for
black workers.
This outstanding commitment to the plight of America's workers led
Hayes to be brought before the House Committee on Un-American
Activities in 1959. He took the fifth amendment rather than cooperate
with the committee.
I was proud to work with Hayes as a member of the original civil
rights movement and as one of the first allies of Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. As a leader of the Amalgamated Meatcutters and Butchers
Union, Hayes rallied support for King in the 1956 Montgomery bus
boycott, the 1963 march on Washington, and the 1966 campaign for open
housing in Chicago. Hayes was also the driving force behind Chicago's
black independent political movement. He led the efforts to get Ralph
Metcalfe and then Harold Washington elected to Congress and
subsequently helped Washington to be chosen mayor of Chicago.
When Hayes himself became a Member of Congress in 1983, he was once
again at the forefront of a hard-fought battle, this time the political
assault on President Reagan's economic policies. Hayes stated that in
electing him, his constituents had ``[served] notice on Ronald
Reagan.'' He vowed to replace Reagan ``with a chief executive committed
to solving the problems of poor people.'' We were all thankful for
Hayes' presence in this particular battle.
Hayes sponsored bills to reduce high unemployment rates and make it
easier for municipalities to offer affordable utility rates through the
purchase of local utility companies. He was one of the earliest
supporters of my bill for a 32-hour work week. In 1992, he submitted a
job bill which would have created 570,000 jobs nationwide while
rebuilding the country's infrastructure by channeling money to States
for building roads, bridges, and schools at a rate corresponding to the
State's unemployment rate.
Even given Charlie's life-long crusade on behalf of America's
workers, I may best remember and honor him for his unparalleled
commitment to end apartheid in South Africa. In 1984, Charlie, together
with Joseph Lowery, was arrested for staging a sit-in at the South
African Embassy in Washington while 150 demonstrators chanted ``Free
South Africa.'' The demonstration kicked off a nationwide Free South
Africa Movement. Two years later, Hayes participated in a congressional
delegation to the Crossroads Shantytown near Cape Town. The delegation
met with Zulu Chief Gatsha Buthelezi who urged the lawmakers not to
side with those favoring violent opposition to apartheid. The visit to
South Africa solidified Hayes' commitment to disinvestment in South
Africa and encouraged him to work even harder toward this goal, a
commitment he brought back with him to the Hill.
I shared a great deal of personal and political history with Charlie
Hayes. We were both active in the labor movement before coming to
Congress and continued to advocate on behalf of America's workers at
every chance we got once on the Hill. We both fought for racial
equality along side of some of the greatest leaders in American civil
rights history. We both believed that the U.S. Congress was the vehicle
through which to continue this work. I am committed to this vision of
the Congress and to the work which both Charlie and I came here to do.
It was an honor and a privilege to have known and worked with Charlie
Hayes. I thank Bobby Scott for organizing this tribute and I commend
the other Members who have participated. I hope that we live to see all
of Charlie's battles won. Thank you.
____________________