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
| 
|
*
Well,
we see an increasingly weaker labor movement as a result of the overall assault
on the labor movement and as a result of the globalization of capital.
-- Angela Davis
|
 |
*
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.
-- Eugene V. Debs 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.
-- Eugene
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.
--
Eugene 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.
-- Eugene 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
|
| *
To
a right-winger, unions are awful. Why do right-wingers hate unions? Because collective
bargaining is the power that a worker has against the corporation. Right-wingers
hate that.
-- Janeane
Garofalo Without
liberals we wouldn't have unions. We wouldn't have environmental protections.
We wouldn't have seat belts or birth control or the ACLU! Any of these things!
--
Janeane Garofalo |
|
"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
| 
|
*
Don't
waste any time in mourning - organize.
-- Joe
Hill 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 |  |
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