When
you say fiscal responsibility, it seems to me that
you really mean rich people keeping their money.
-- Alice Adams
Union
gives strength.
-- Aesop
|
|
Power
goes to two poles -- to those who've got the
money and those who've got the people.
-- Saul
Alinksy
|
Join
the union, girls, and together say Equal Pay for
Equal Work.
-- Susan
B. Anthony |
|
In
Unity there is strength; We can move mountains when
we're united and enjoy life --Without unity we are
victims. Stay united.
-- Bill Bailey
We
are not complaining about the work. We want to see
our hard work reflected in our pay.
-- Emmett J. Bogdon
The
best of wages will not compensate for excessively
long working hours which undermine heath.
-- Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
The
most important word in the language of the working
class is "solidarity."
-- Harry Bridges
The
quality of employees will be directly proportional
to the quality of life you maintain for them.
-- Charles E. Bryan
The
role of a labor union is to ensure that the balance
is not tipped in favor of the employer when employees
do not receive wages and benefits commensurate with
their contribution.
-- William Burrus
The
history of America has been largely created by the
deeds of its working people and their organizations--there
is scarcely an issue that is not influenced by labor’s
organized efforts or lack of them.
-- William Cahn, Labor historian
|
|
Every
advance in this half-century-Social Security,
civil rights, Medicare, aid to education, one
after another-came with the support and leadership
of American Labor.
-- Jimmy
Carter
|
Management
doesn't seem to understand the importance of the human
factor.
-- Charles, Prince of Wales
The
people united will never be defeated.
-- Cesar
Chavez
The
fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is
always about people.
-- Cesar
Chavez
We
draw our strength from the very despair in which
we have been forced to live. We shall endure.
-- Cesar
Chavez
|
|
|
Labor
Unions are the leading force for democratization
and progress.
-- Noam
Chomsky
|
|
The
only thing workers have to bargain with is their skill
or their labor. Denied the right to withhold it as
a last resort, they become powerless. The strike is
therefore not a breakdown of collective bargaining-it
is the indispensable cornerstone of that process.
-- Paul Clark
If
you object to unfair treatment, you're an ingrate.
If you seek equity and fair consideration, you're
uppity. If you demand union security, you're un-American.
If you rebel against repressive management tactics,
they will lynch and scalp you. But if you are passive
and patient, they will take advantage of both.
-- Congressman William Clay, Sr.
"The
tendency of taxation is to create a class of persons
who do not labor, to take from those who do labor
the produce of that labor, and to give it to those
who do not labor"
-- William Cobbett
The
superior person understands rightness; the inferior
person understands profit.
-- Confucius
Plato
told Aristotle no one should make more than five times
the pay of the lowest member of society. J.P. Morgan
said 20 times. Jesus advocated a negative differential
-- that's why they killed him.
-- Graef Crystal
With
all their faults, trade unions have done more for
humanity than any other organization of men that ever
existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty,
for education, for the betterment of the race, for
the developing of character in men, than any other
association of men.
-- Clarence Darrow
 |
Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled
and bruised itself. We have been enjoined by
the courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the
militia, traduced by the press, frowned upon
in public opinion, and deceived by politicians.
'But notwithstanding all this and all these,
labor is today the most vital and potential
power this planet has ever known, and its historic
mission is as certain of ultimate realization
as is the setting of the sun.
-- Euguene
V. Debs
|
You
have got to unite in the same labor union and in the
same political party and strike and vote together,
and the hour you do that, the world is yours.
-- Euguene
V. Debs
What
can Labor do for itself? The answer is not difficult.
Labor can organize, it can unify; it can consolidate
its forces. This done, it can demand and command.
-- Euguene
V. Debs
If
CEOs insist that middle class Americans compete with
cheap foreign labor, why not outsource the jobs of
CEOs? If business is all about cost, they should be
the first to volunteer.
-- Lou Dobbs
The
fact is whether one looks at this [outsourcing] in
terms of men and women, working men and women in this
country who are simply being screwed, or whether one
looks at this in terms of corporations who are benefiting,
the fact is it is certainly not helping the American
economy.
-- Lou Dobbs
The
only effective answer to organized greed is organized
labor.
--Thomas Donahue
|
|
People
might not get all that they work for in this
world, but they must certainly work for all
that they get.
-- Frederick
Douglass
|
Business
knows no pity, and cares for justice only when justice
is seen to be better policy. If it had power to control
the elements, it would grasp in its iron clutches
the waters, sunshine and air and resell them by measure,
and at exorbitant prices to the millions of famished
men, women and children.
-- W.A. Duncan, in the Cherokee Advocate, 1892
Labor
rights are as fundamental as human rights and the
job of a democratic country is to protect both.
-- Tony Ehreneich
|
Only
a fool would try to deprive working men and
working women of their right to join the union
of their choice.
-- Dwight
D. Eisenhower
|
|
Today
in America, unions have a secure place in our industrial
life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the ugly
thought of breaking unions and depriving working men
and women of the right to join the union of their
choice. I have no use for those -- regardless of their
political party -- who hold some vain and foolish
dream of spinning the clock back to days when organized
labor was huddled, almost as a hapless mass. Only
a fool would try to deprive working men and women
of the right to join the union of their choice.
-- Dwight
D. Eisenhower
To
the fervent proponents of ruthless corporate capitalism
I say: make a millionaire CEO live as a poor sweatshop
worker in Indonesia for one month and then ask him
about the merits of the world economic system.
-- Vassilis Epaminondou
If
the workers of the world want to win, all they have
to do is recognize their own solidarity. They have
nothing to do but fold their arms and the world will
stop. The workers are more powerful with their hands
in their pockets than all the property of the capitalists.
. . .
-- Joseph Ettor, IWW organizer
What
is a labour victory? I maintain that it is a twofold
thing. Workers must gain economic advantage, but they
must also gain revolutionary spirit, in order to achieve
a complete victory. For workers to gain a few cents
more a day, a few minutes less a day, and go back
to work with the same psychology, the same attitude
toward society is to achieve a temporary gain and
not a lasting victory.
-- Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
History
has a long-range perspective. It ultimately passes
stern judgment on tyrants and vindicates those who
fought, suffered, were imprisoned, and died for human
freedom, against political oppression and economic
slavery.
-- Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
|
|
There
are two kinds of people, those who do the work
and those who take the credit. Try to be in
the first group; there is less competition there.
-- Indira
Gandhi
|
"Poorly
paid labor is inefficient labor, the world over"
-- Henry George
|
"What
does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and
less jails; more books and less arsenals; more
learning and less vice; more leisure and less
greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact,
more of the opportunities to cultivate our better
natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood
more beautiful, and childhood more happy and
bright."
-- Samuel
Gompers
|
|
You
can't do it unless you organize.
-- Samuel
Gompers
The
man who has his millions will want everything he can
lay his hands on and then raise his voice against
the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day. . .
. We do want more, and when it becomes more, we shall
still want more. And we shall never cease to demand
more until we have received the results of our labor.
-- Samuel
Gompers
Our
movement is of the working people, for the working
people, by the working people. . . . There is not
a right too long denied to which we do not aspire
in order to achieve; there is not a wrong too long
endured that we are not determined to abolish.
-- Samuel
Gompers
Where
trade unions are most firmly organized, there are
the rights of the people most respected.
-- Samuel
Gompers
Never
forget, people DIED for the eight hour workday.
-- Rebecca Gordon
If
the workers are organized, all they have to do is
to put their hands in their pockets and they have
got the capitalist class whipped.
-- William Dudley "Big Bill" Haywood
If
the workers took a notion they could stop all speeding
trains; Every ship upon the ocean they can tie with
mighty chains. Every wheel in the creation, every
mine and every mill; Fleets and armies of the nation,
will at their command stand still.
-- Joe Hill
I
have nothing to say for myself, only that I have always
tried to make this earth a little bit better.
-- Joe Hill
We
want a better America, an America that will give its
citizens, first of all, a higher and higher standard
of living so that no child will cry for food in the
midst of plenty.
-- Sidney Hillman
|
Every
man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of
others, no matter if he occupies a throne.
~ Robert
G. Ingersoll
|
|
Although
it is true that only about 20 percent of American
workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards
across the board in salaries, benefits and working
conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a
non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One
thing that corporations do not do is give out money
out of the goodness of their hearts.
-- Molly Ivins
I
am convinced that if the members of labor organizations
would follow some of the tactics of the employers
organizations their movement could more successfully
withstand its opponents and to progress as it has
in the past. But if we are to be successful we must
have, above all things, more loyalty and less selfishness.
-- Charles E. James, African-American Union leader,
1907
|
|
A
wise and frugal government, which shall leave
men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry
and improvement, and shall not take from the
mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this
is the sum of good government.
-- Thomas
Jefferson
|
|
My
friends, it is solidarity of labor we want.
We do not want to find fault with each other,
but to solidify our forces and say to each other:
"We must be together; our masters are joined
together and we must do the same thing."
-- Mother
Jones
I
know that there are no limits to which the powers
of privilege will not go to keep the workers
in slavery
-- Mother
Jones
|
|
I
want you to pledge to yourselves in this convention
to stand as one solid army against the foes of human
labor. Think of the thousands who are killed every
year and there is no redress for it. We will fight
until the mines are made secure and human life valued
more than props. Look things in the face. Don't' fear
a governor; don't fear anybody. You pay the governor;
he has the right to protect you. You are the biggest
part of the population in the state. You create its
wealth, so I say, "let the fight go on; if nobody
else will keep on, I will."
-- Mother
Jones, 1913
No
one who works for a living should live in poverty.
-- Senator Edward Kennedy
|
|
The
American Labor Movement has consistently demonstrated
its devotion to the public interest. It is,
and has been, good for all America.
-- John
F. Kennedy
|
Our
labor unions are not narrow, self-seeking groups.
They have raised wages, shortened hours, and provided
supplemental benefits. Through collective bargaining
and grievance procedures, they have brought justice
and democracy to the shop floor.
-- John
F. Kennedy
|
In
our glorious fight for civil rights, we must
guard against being fooled by false slogans,
as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights'
and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor
unions and the freedom of collective bargaining...
We demand this fraud be stopped.
-- Martin
Luther King, Jr.
|
|
"All
labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance
and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."
-- Martin
Luther King, Jr.
More
men are killed by overwork than the importance of
the world justifies.
-- Rudyard Kipling
If
hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the
rich would have kept it all to themselves.
-- Lane Kirkland
|
|
A
working class hero is something to be.
-- John
Lennon
|
Human
history is work history. The heroes of the people
are work heroes.
-- Meridel Le Sueur
Let
the workers organize. Let the toilers assemble. Let
their crystallized voice proclaim their injustices
and demand their privileges. Let all thoughtful citizens
sustain them, for the future of Labor is the future
of America.
-- John L. Lewis
The
labor movement is organized upon a principle that
the strong shall help the weak. The strength of a
strong man is a prideful thing, but the unfortunate
thing in life is that strong men do not remain strong.
And it is just as true of unions and labor organizations
as is true of men and individuals. And whereas today
the craft unions of this country may be able to stand
upon their own feet and like mighty oaks stand before
the gale, defy the lightning, yet the day may come
when those organizations will not be able to withstand
the lightning and the gale. Now, prepare yourselves
by making a contribution to your less fortunate brethren...
Organize the unorganized!
-- John L. Lewis
|
If
any man tells you he loves America, yet hates
labor, he is a liar. If any man tells you he
trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool.
-- Abraham
Lincoln
All
that harms labor is treason to America.
-- Abraham
Lincoln
|
 |
"Labor
is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital
is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed
if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior
of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
-- Abraham
Lincoln
The
strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family
relation should be one uniting working people of all
nations and tongues and kindreds.
-- Abraham
Lincoln
|
I
have been very interested in labor movement.
If I could have wished another life, I would
have loved to be a pioneer woman in the beginning
of labor movement.
-- Astrid
Lindgren
|
|
"All
wealth is the product of labor."
-- John Locke
When
a man tells you that he got rich through hard work,
ask him whose.
--Don Marquis
No
festival of martial glory or warrior's renown is this;
no pageant pomp of war-like conquest, no glory of
fratricidal strife attend this day. It is dedicated
to peace, civilization and the triumphs of industry.
It is a demonstration of fraternity and the harbinger
of a better age--a more chivalrous time, when labor
shall be best honored and well rewarded.
-- Peter J. McGuire, Father of Labor Day
We
must elevate the craft, protect its interests, advance
wages, reduce the hours of labor, spread correct economic
doctrines and cultivate a spirit of fraternity among
the working people regardless of creed, color, nationality
or politics. These principles are the foundation principles
of our organization.
-- Peter J. McGuire, Father of Labor Day
Every
piece of progressive social legislation passed by
Congress in the 20th century bears a union label.
-- George Meany
Labor
never quits. We never give up the fight – no matter
how tough the odds, no matter how long it takes.
-- George Meany
The
basic goal of labor will not change. It is -- as it
has always been, and I am sure always will be -- to
better the standards of life for all who work for
wages and to seek decency and justice and dignity
for all Americans.
-- George Meany
For
it is an absurdity to call a country civilized in
which a decent and industrious man, laboriously mastering
a trade which is valuble and necessary to the common
weal, has no assurance that it will sustain him while
he stands ready to practice it, or keep him out of
the poorhouse when illness or age makes him idle.
-- H.L. Mencken
A
Society that gives to one class all the opportunities
for leisure and to another all the burdens of work
condemns both classes to spiritual sterility.
-- Lewis Mumford
The
essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily
of human lives, but of the products of human labor.
-- George Orwell
Strike
not for a few cents more an hour, because the
price of living will be raised faster still, but
strike for all you earn, be content with nothing
less.
-- Lucy
Parsons |
|
The
present age handed over the workers, each alone and
defenseless, to the unbridled greed of competitors...
so that a very few and exceedingly rich men have laid
a yoke of almost slavery on the unnumbered masses
of non-owning workers.
-- Pope Leo XIII
The
important role of union organizations must be admitted:
their object is the representation of the various
categories of workers, their lawful collaboration
in the economic advance of society, and the development
of the sense of their responsibility for the realization
of the common good.
-- Pope Paul VI
The
labor movement means just this: It is the last
noble protest of the American people against the
power of incorporated wealth.
-- Wendell
Phillips
Organize,
and stand together. Claim something together,
and at once; let the nation hear a united demand
from the laboring voice, and then, when you
have got that, go on after another; but get
something.
-- Wendell
Phillips
|
|
The
right to a job without a right to a living wage is
just as weak as the right to a living wage without
a job. Both rights must remain intact and linked together.
-- William P. Quigley
|
|
The
essence of trade unionism is social uplift.
The labor movement has been the haven for the
dispossessed, the despised, the neglected, the
downtrodden, the poor.
-- A.
Philip Randolph
|
"'If
democracy and self-rule are the fundamentals, then
why should people give up these rights when they enter
their workplace? In politics we fight like tigers
for freedom, for the right to elect our leaders, for
freedom of movement, choice of residence, choice of
what work to pursue - control of our lives, in short.
And then we wake up in the morning and go to work,
and all those rights disappear. We no longer insist
on them. And so for most of the day we return to feudalism.
That is what capitalism is - a version of feudalism
in which capital replaces land, and business leaders
replace kings. But the hierarchy remains. And so we
still hand over our lives' labor, under duress, to
feed rulers who do no real work.... 'So. We must challenge.
It is time. If self-rule is a fundamental value, if
simple justice is a value, then they are values everywhere,
including in the workplace where we spend so much
of our lives'...."
-- Kim Stanley Robinson
You
in the unions do not yet represent all of labor.
But I hope some day you will, because I believe
that it is through strength, through the fact
that people who know what people need are working
to make this country a better place for all people,
that we will help the world to accept our leadership
and understand that, under our form of government
and through our way of life, we have something
to offer them…
-- Eleanor
Roosevelt |
|
I
have always felt that it was important that everyone
who was a worker join a labor organization.
-- Eleanor
Roosevelt
I
believe you should tell the story of injustices, of
inequalities, of bad conditions, so that the people
as a whole in this country really face the problems
that people who are pushed to the point of striking
know all about, but others know practically nothing
about.
-- Eleanor
Roosevelt
The
labor movement has a great role to play in our country
today.
-- Eleanor
Roosevelt
|
|
No
business which depends for existence on paying
less than living wages to its workers has any
right to continue in this country. By living
wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level
--I mean the wages of decent living.
-- Franklin
D. Roosevelt
|
It
is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic
nation that is have free and independent labor unions.
-- Franklin
D. Roosevelt
It
is to the real advantage of every producer, every
manufacturer and every merchant to cooperate in the
improvement of working conditions, because the best
customer of American industry is the well-paid worker.
-- Franklin
D. Roosevelt
Business
often does a good job supporting communities:
the arts, universities, and scientific enterprises...
But that philosophy has rarely reached poor countries.
Even businesses that are enlightened in their
home bases see Africa, Latin America, and parts
of Asia as places to exploit natural resources
or use cheap labor.
-- Jeffrey
Sachs |
|
You
take my life when you do take the means whereby I
live.
-- William Shakespeare
"Labour
was the first price, the original purchase - money
that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or
by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world
was originally purchased."
-- Adam Smith
"Without
labor nothing prospers."
-- Sophocles
When
we talk about equal pay for equal work, women in the
workplace are beginning to catch up. If we keep going
at this current rate, we will achieve full equality
in about 475 years. I don't know about you, but I
can't wait that long.
-- Lya Sorano
I
am weary seeing our laboring classes so wretchedly
housed, fed, and clothed, while thousands
of dollars are wasted every year over unsightly
statues. If these great man must have outdoor
memorials, let them be in the form of handsome
blocks of buildings for the poor
--
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
|
|
 |
No
man can call himself liberal, or radical, or
even a conservative advocate of fair play, if
his work depends in any way on the unpaid or
underpaid labor of women at home, or in the
office.
-- Gloria
Steinem
|
Today
I send this message to every emerging global corporation:
"justice; family, community, and union" are the same
in every language and, wherever you go and whatever
you do, a new global labor movement is coming to find
you.
-- Andy Stern, SEIU President
We
can bring to earth a new world from the ashes of the
old because our union transforms us the powerless
into the powerful. And I ask you to join together
in using all that power--all that strength to make
the dreams of all workers and communities around the
world come true.
-- Andy Stern, SEIU President
What
is economics? A science invented by the upper class
in order to acquire the fruits of the labor of the
underclass.
-- August Strindberg, 1884
When
fewer workers have unions, the standard of living
falls for everyone and the gap between the rich and
poor grows.
-- John Sweeney, 2003
As
it has over the decades, the union movement stands
for the fundamental moral values that make America
strong: quality education for our children, affordable
health care for every person—not just some—an end
to poverty, secure pensions and wages that enable
families to sustain the middle-class life that has
fueled this nation’s prosperity and strength. Union
members and other working family activists don’t just
vote our moral values—we live them. We fight for them,
day in, day out. Our commitment to economic and social
justice propels us and everything we do.
-- John Sweeney, November 2004
We
should measure the success of our economy by the breadth
of our Middle Class and the scope of opportunity offered
to the poorest child to climb into that Middle Class.
-- John Sweeney
It
is time that all Americans realized that the place
of labor is side by side with the businessman and
with the farmer, and not one-degree lower.
-- Harry S Truman
In
an industrial society which confuses work and productivity,
the necessity of producing has always been an enemy
of the desire to create.
-- Raoul Vaneigem
"Labor
wants also pride and joy in doing good work, a sense
of making or doing something beautiful or useful -
to be treated with dignity and respect as brother
and sister"
-- Thorstein Veblen
Labor
in this country is independent and proud. It has not
to ask the patronage of capital, but capital solicits
the aid of labor.
-- Daniel Webster
|
|
A
downtrodden class... will never be able to make
an effective protest until it achieves solidarity.
-- H.G.
Wells
|
While
we are fighting for freedom, we must see, among
other things, that labor is free.
-- Woodrow
Wilson |
|
If
capitalism is fair then unionism must be. If men have
a right to capitalize their ideas and the resources
of their country, then that implies the right of men
to capitalize their labor.
-- Frank Lloyd Wright
