Labor Laws Quotes

• In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such 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.

  Fighting, Rights, Purpose

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• I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. So while we do not propose any war upon capital, we do wish to allow the humblest man an equal chance to get rich with everybody else.

  Abraham Lincoln

  War, Work, Believe

  Abraham Lincoln, Mario Matthew Cuomo, G. S. Boritt (2004). “Lincoln on Democracy”, p.176, Fordham Univ Press

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• Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Party, Law, Political

  Letter to Edgar Newton Eisenhower, teachingamericanhistory.org. November 08, 1954.

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• And what would help minority workers are the same things that would help white workers: the opportunity to earn a living wage, the education and training that lead to such jobs, labor laws and tax laws that restore some balance to the distribution of the nation's wealth.

  Barack Obama

  Jobs, Opportunity, Law

  Barack Obama (2006). “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream”, p.171, Crown

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• We have to change economic policy: create confidence, foster investment, cut the public deficit, restructure taxation, and reform the labor laws.

  Mariano Rajoy

  Cutting, Reform, Taxation

  "Will Spain Be the Next Greece?". Interview with Lalli Weymouth, www.slate.com. October 28, 2011.

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• Should any political party attempt to abolish social security unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group of course that believes you can do these things. Among them are a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Stupid, Party, Believe

  Letter to Edgar Newton Eisenhower, teachingamericanhistory.org. November 08, 1954.

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• These are the now-endangered markers of a civilized society: legally ordained minimum wages, child labor laws, workers safety and compensation laws, pure foods and safe drugs, Social Security, Medicare and rules that promote competitive markets over monopolies and cartels.

  Bill Moyers

  Children, Law, Safety

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• The unions claim the deck is stacked against them when it comes to labor laws, but the truth is many private and public sector workers are forced to pay union dues as a condition of their employment, yet they have little say in how the unions spend their money.

  Linda Chavez

  Law, Employment, Literature

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• Newt Gingrich wants to repeal child labor laws. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the man that we need to lead us into the 18th century.

  David Letterman

  Children, Men, Gentleman

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• The [Ronald] Reagan administration told the business world that they were not going to enforce the labor laws.

  Noam Chomsky

  Law, World, Administration

  Source: www.iww.org

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• As President, my father will change the labor laws that were put into place at a time when women were not a significant portion of the workforce. And he will focus on making quality child care affordable and accessible for all.

  Ivanka Trump

  Children, Father, Law

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• The poor, stupid, free American citizen! Free to starve, free to tramp the highways of this great country, he enjoys universal suffrage, and by that right, he has forged chains around his limbs. The reward that he receives is stringent labor laws prohibiting the right of boycott, of picketing, of everything, except the right to be robbed of the fruits of his labor.

  Emma Goldman

  Country, Freedom, Stupid

  Emma Goldman (2009). “Anarchism and Other Essays: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.204, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Kids don't have a little brother working in the coal mine, they don't have a little sister coughing her lungs out in the looms of the big mill towns of the Northeast. Why? Because we organized; we broke the back of the sweatshops in this country; we have child labor laws. Those were not benevolent gifts from enlightened management. They were fought for, they were bled for, they were died for by working people, by people like us. Kids ought to know that.

  Utah Phillips

  Country, Song, Brother

  Interview with David Kupfer, progressive.org. September 1, 2003.

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• [The right] may never bring prayer back to schools, but it has rescued all manner of rightwing economic nostrums from history's dustbins. Having rolled back the landmark economic reforms of the sixties (the war on poverty) and those of the thirties (labor law, agricultural price supports, banking regulation), its leaders now turn their guns on the accomplishments of the earliest years of progressivism (Woodrow Wilson's estate tax; Theodore Roosevelt's anti-trust measures). With a little more effort, the backlash may well repeal the entire twentieth century.

  Thomas Frank

  Prayer, War, School

  "What's the Matter with Kansas?". Book by Thomas Frank, 2004.

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