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LABOR QUOTES

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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

Labor Quotes

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Workers Day - May 1

Labor Day - 1st Mon in September

 

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