Labour Movement Quotes

• The labor movement means just this: It is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.

  Wendell Phillips

  Mean, People, Evil

  Wendell Phillips (1891). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters: Second series”

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• The labor movement is organized upon a principle that the strong shall help the weak.

  John L. Lewis

  Strong, Principles, Organized Labor

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• 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

  Uplifting, Essence, Organized Labor

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• History is a great teacher. Now everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Teacher, Simple, Organized Labor

  Speech to the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL - CIO), December 11, 1961.

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• Labor is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission of emancipating the workers of the world from the thraldom of the ages is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun.

  Eugene V. Debs

  Realization, Organized Labor, Today

  "An Ideal Labor Press". The Metal Worker, May 1904.

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• 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

  America, Presidential, Organized Labor

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• 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

  Beautiful, Revenge, Book

  The Shoe workers' Journal, Volume 16‎ (p. 4), 1915.

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• The history of the labor movement needs to be taught in every school in this land. America is a living testimonial to what free men and women, organized in free democratic trade unions can do to make a better life. We ought to be proud of it!

  Hubert H. Humphrey

  School, Men, Land

  Address to the Minnesota State AFL-CIO Convention, 1977.

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• 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

  Money, Labor Day, Gold

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.13

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• 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

  Pioneers, Another Life, Labor

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• 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

  Thug, Political, Public Opinion

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• Labor was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things.

  Adam Smith

  Labor Day, Firsts, Wealth

  1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, bk.1, ch.5.

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• The deliberate weakening of the labour movement by the machinations of market fundamentalists, gaining momentum during the periods when Margaret Thatcher led the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan governed in the United States, contributed to the decline of human rights.

  Richard A. Falk

  Rights, Kingdoms, United States

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• The labour movement had the best opportunity in 50 years to transform not merely an industrial situation and win an important battle for workers in struggle, but an opportunity to change the government of the day.

  Arthur Scargill

  Struggle, Winning, Opportunity

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• Security was the demand which set in motion labour movements in history; trade unions, friendly societies, consumer cooperatives were all about compensating for the impotence of individual resistance.

  Zygmunt Bauman

  Friendly, Demand, Unions

  Interview with Marcelo Dimentstein, Alberto Senderey, Andy Spokoiny and Shira Shnitzer, leatid.org. February 2009.

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• United we stand, divided we fall is one of the oldest and truest slogans of the Labour movement.

  Jeremy Corbyn

  Fall, United, Divided

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

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• In general, if signs of sectarianism do appear in a Socialist Party, these are only the products of the absence of a broad Labour movement in the country.

  Karl Radek

  Country, Party, Absence

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• Arthur Scargill is the Labour movements nearest equivalent to a First World War General.

  Neil Kinnock

  War, World, Firsts

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• Ive been really clear that my first job as leader of the Labour Party and co-leader of the labour movement is to engage with our base.

  David Cunliffe

  Jobs, Party, Leader

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• The British Labour movement is today, and for many years has been, working in a narrow circle of strikes that are looked upon, not as an expedient, and not as a means of propaganda, but as an ultimate aim.

  Friedrich Engels

  Mean, Circles, Years

  1878 Letter to Eduard Bernstein, 17 Jul.

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• If a Labour movement, on a bourgeois basis, has hitherto existed in the country where the new movement is awakening it will certainly not disappear all at once.

  Karl Radek

  Country, Awakening, Disappear

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• We have a great objective - the light on the hill - which we aim to reach by working for the betterment of mankind not only here but anywhere we may give a helping hand. If it were not for that, the Labour movement would not be worth fighting for.

  Ben Chifley

  Fighting, Light, Hands

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• Such a scheme.. the betrayal of the national democracy of Industrial Ulster, would mean a carnival of reaction both North and South, would set back the wheels of progress, would destroy the oncoming unity of the Irish labour movement and paralyse all advanced movements while it lasted.

  James Connolly

  Betrayal, Mean, Unity

  James Connolly, Peter Berresford-Ellis (1988). “James Connolly: Selected Writings”, p.275, Pluto Press

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• Is Tony Blair of the Labour party? The answer to that is profoundly 'yes', but that is not how, sentimentally, he is regarded in the Labour movement generally.

  Neil Kinnock

  Party, Answers, Blair

  "'He's a bastard but he's our bastard'". Interview with Nicholas Watt, www.theguardian.com. April 29, 2007.

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• I had the good fortune to be thrown unexpectedly into something called the Labour Research Unit - a little known organisation set up to assist the fledgling labour movement. It was not a company, nor a statutory board, nor a government department - in fact it did not exist at all as a legal entity. Thus in slightly unorthodox circumstances I became part of that struggle.

  S. R. Nathan

  Struggle, Government, Unorthodox

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