For twenty years, Robert J. Haynes has served the 400,000 union members of the Commonwealth as an officer in the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. His career in the labor movement began nearly forty years ago in 1968 as an 18-year old when he went to work as an ironworker. Haynes rose through the ranks of Ironworkers Local 7, serving as an apprentice, journeyman, foreman, steward, and was ultimately elected financial secretary-treasurer of Local 7 in 1979. His career as a State Federation leader began when he was elected as the Massachusetts AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer in 1987. Haynes served in that post until his election as President of the State Federation in 1998. The Massachusetts AFL-CIO has flourished under his leadership as he has fought time and time again to do whatever it takes to improve the quality of life of the working families in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

President Haynes currently serves on: Massachusetts Workforce Investment Board, Boston Private Industry Council, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Mass AREA (Massachusetts Affordable, Reliable Electricity Alliance), University of Massachusetts/Boston Center for Collaborative Leadership and Development and Friends of Boston Homeless. He served as well on the Steering Committee for the Campaign for Research and Chair of the Cancer Advisory Committee at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the Council on Organized Labor and Tobacco Control at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. From 2001 to 2006 Haynes served as the President of the AFL-CIO’s Northeast Council, which brings together the federations of labor in twelve states in the Northeast, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico and on the AFL-CIO Executive Council. He has also been the voice of working families on such important boards as: Massachusetts Workers Compensation Advisory Board, University of Massachusetts, Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, United Way of Massachusetts Bay, Massachusetts JOBS Council, Boys and Girls Club of Boston, Boston Minuteman Council Boy Scouts of America, Labor Guild of the Archdiocese of Boston, Massachusetts Area Planning Council, Challenge to Leadership Committee, Boston Public Library Foundation, Citizens for Public Schools, and the Adult and Community Learning Services Advisory Council. He also served as the chair of his ward and city of Medford Democratic committees and as a member of the Democratic State Committee. Haynes was also honored to serve Governor Deval Patrick’s transition team on the Economic Development Working Group and the Secretary of Labor search committee.

His list of awards and recognitions is extensive, including: Cushing-Gavin Award, given by the Labor Guild of the Archdiocese of Boston; the Dubin Award from UMass/Dartmouth; the Chancellor’s Medal from UMass/Boston; and an honorary doctorate of human letters from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. There is also an award named in his honor at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst Labor Relations and Research Center. He received the Medford Democrat of the Year award and he was awarded the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Award as the state’s top Democrat by the Massachusetts Democratic Party. He has been recognized by many organizations including ACORN’s Friends of the People award, Mass Senior Action’s Advocacy Excellence award, United Way’s Red Feather Society award, National Organization of Legal Service Workers, UAW, Equal Justice award, Massachusetts AFL-CIO Merit award and the University of Massachusetts/Boston College of Management Alumni award.

President Haynes has played a key role in labor’s successes and battles during the past two decades. During his tenure, organized labor has successfully defeated ballot questions on the prevailing wage law and state tax policies that would have been harmful to working families. The Massachusetts AFL-CIO led the way in raising the state’s minimum wage three times during his tenure, each time making it the highest in the nation. Haynes has made the State Federation’s political program a priority, with an emphasis on electing pro-labor candidates to all levels of public office. For years President Haynes has led efforts to elect and re-elect the strongest labor Congressional Delegation in the nation, headed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the most forceful voice for organized labor in our nation’s capitol. Recently the political program has produced incredible successes, helping Senator Kerry make New Hampshire the only state to turn from “red” in 2000 to “blue” in 2004, increasing the pro-worker majority in the state legislature by three seats each in 2004 and 2006, and finally electing a pro-worker Democrat to the Corner Office in Governor Deval L. Patrick after sixteen successive years of anti-labor Republican governors. As a result, Governor Patrick kept his promise to restore a Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development to his Cabinet, and has delivered on his pledge to give organized labor a voice in state government by, among many other things, appointing former state AFL-CIO Vice President George Noel as the Commonwealth’s Director of the Department of Labor.

In addition to political and legislative efforts, Robert Haynes is credited with dramatically increasing the State Federation’s role on the Education & Training and organizing fronts. He was the driving force behind the creation of the State Federation’s Education & Training Department, which is charged with strengthening labor’s involvement in all facets of workforce development, and making sure working people have a voice in economic development. In his emphasis on labor’s role in education he also went to great lengths to expand the annual Scholarship Program of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, which awards over $1,000,000 per year in college scholarships to hundreds of college-bound students from working families. Under Haynes’s stewardship the Scholarship Program’s endowment is approaching $800,000.

Maybe his proudest accomplishment came when he put all the goodwill and altruistic nature of organized labor behind a cause that impacts us all. When he decided to co-found the Massachusetts AFL-CIO Walk to Cure Cancer, and set a goal that organized labor would raise $5 million towards establishing the Massachusetts AFL-CIO Cancer Research Center at UMass Memorial Hospital, he not only created the nation’s only cancer research center named for a labor organization, but he also provided for a unifying and monumental event behind which all of labor could rally and demonstrate our true community involvement. The event has grown dramatically since its inception in 1999. The Massachusetts AFL-CIO and its affiliates have raised over $4 million towards its goal and each September thousands of union families participate in the Walk to Cure Cancer.

Born and raised in Cambridge, Haynes holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management from Boston State College and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts at Boston. He is also a graduate of the Harvard Trade Union Program.

Haynes lives in Medford with his wife, Marybeth, and his son, Joseph.

Revised 7/30/07