Elizabeth Hays, CWA Traffic Pioneer, Dies

Elizabeth Hays, who first went to work in 1923 at age 16 for Pacific Telephone Co. in Spokane, Wash., and retired 42 years later in 1965 as a CWA Representative, died Oct. 29 in Spokane. She had observed her 91st birthday eight days earlier.

Hays became active in the earliest days of the formation of the union — 1937 — a year before the founding of the National Federation of Telephone Workers, CWA’s predecessor union. She served as the traffic representative throughout eastern Washington state in those early days and later worked on such massive organizing projects as the one that brought CWA recognition for telephone workers throughout the Washington-Idaho area.

By 1950, Hays had been elected vice president of a major CWA traffic division and was appointed to the union staff on June 1, 1951. She retired Nov. 1, 1965.

Hays first accepted work with Pacific Telephone as an operator on Aug. 8, 1923, at age 16, in a day and age when meaningful child labor laws were nonexistent.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Eugene V. Hays, who died last June 8. Surviving are two sons, Eugene V. Hays and Delbert Gayle Hays.