Labor Movement Quotes - Page 2

• 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

  Economic Globalization, Movement, Results

  "Frontline", www.pbs.org. 1997.

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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, Labour Movement, Essence

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• 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

  Strong, Children, Commitment

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• Increased interest and participation by labor in the affairs of government should make for economic and political stability in the future. Labor has a constitutional and statutory right to participate.

  John L. Lewis

  Government, Political, Affair

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• There is nothing stronger than the American labor movement. United, we cannot and we will not be turned aside. Well work for it, sisters and brothers. Well stand for it. Together. Each of us. To bring out the best in America. To bring out the best in ourselves, and each other.

  Richard Trumka

  Brother, America, Stronger

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• The labor movement is people. Our unions have brought millions of men and women together, made them members one of another, and given them common tools for common goals. Their goals are goals for all America - and their enemies are the enemies for progress. The two cannot be separated.

  John F. Kennedy

  Men, Two, America

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• Slowly those who create the wealth of the world are permitted to share it. The future is in labor's strong, rough hands.

  Mother Jones

  Strong, Hands, World

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• In less than a century we experienced great movement. The youth movement! The labor movement! The civil rights movement! The peace movement! The solidarity movement! The women's movement! The disability movement! The disarmament movement! The gay rights movement! The environmental movement! Movement! Transformation! Is there any reason to believe we are done?

  Holly Near

  Women, Believe, Gay

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• The origin of the labor movement lies in self-defense.

  Mary Ritter Beard

  Lying, Self, Defense

  Mary Ritter Beard (1920). “A Short History of the American Labor Movement”

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• The trade agreement has become a rather distinct feature of the American labor movement. ... It is based on the idea that labor shall accept the capitalist system of production and make terms of peace with it.

  Mary Ritter Beard

  Agreement, Ideas, Movement

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• [The labor movement is] a movement of the working people, for the working people, by the working people, governed by ourselves, with its policies determined by ourselves.

  Samuel Gompers

  People, Movement, Determined

  Proceedings of the Convention, Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor (p. 37), 1923.

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• So long as we have held fast to voluntary principles and have been actuated and inspired by the spirit of service, we have sustained our forward progress, and we have made our labor movement something to be respected and accorded a place in the councils of the Republic. Where we have blundered into trying to force a policy or decision, even though wise and right, we have impeded if not interrupted the realization of our own aims.

  Samuel Gompers

  Wise, Long, Decision

  Samuel Gompers, John McBride, William Green (1948). “The American Federationist”

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• Legislators who are of even average intelligence stand out among their colleagues. . . . A cultured college president has become as much a rarity as a literate newspaper publisher. A financier interested in economics is as exceptional as a labor leader interested in the labor movement. For the most part our leaders are merely following out in front; they [only] marshal us in the way that we are going.

  Bergen Evans

  Leadership, College, Average

  Bergen Evans (1954). “The Spoor of Spooks: And Other Nonsense”, New York : Knopf

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• English audiences of working people are like an instrument that responds to the player. Thought ripples up and down them, and if in some heart the speaker strikes a dissonance there is a swift answer. Always the voice speaks from gallery or pit, the terrible voice which detaches itself in every English crowd, full of caustic wit, full of irony or, maybe, approval.

  Mary Heaton Vorse

  Heart, Player, Voice

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• Collective bargaining has always been the bedrock of the American labor movement. I hope that you will continue to anchor your movement to this foundation. Free collective bargaining is good for the entire Nation. In my view, it is the only alternative to State regulation of wages and prices - a path which leads far down the grim road of totalitarianism. Those who would destroy or further limit the rights of organized labor - those who would cripple collective bargaining or prevent organization of the unorganized - do a disservice to the cause of democracy.

  John F. Kennedy

  Organization, Rights, Views

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• The major organizing centers, like the labor movement, have been severely weakened in the United States by policy.

  Noam Chomsky

  United States, Movement, Policy

  Source: pennpoliticalreview.org

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• I would say the issue for the labor movement in the United States is not structural... there is no correlation between the success of workers and how the labor movement is structured.

  Andy Stern

  Issues, United States, Movement

  "Andy Stern Laments Washington Politics But Scoffs At Idea Of Running For Office" by Sam Stein, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 15, 2010.

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• The wage-earning class the world over are the victims of society.

  Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

  Class, World, Earning

  Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1973). “The Rebel Girl: an autobiography, my first life (1906-1926).”

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• a labor victory must be economic and it must be revolutionizing.

  Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

  Victory, Economic, Labor

  Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Rosalyn Fraad Baxandall (1987). “Words on fire: the life and writing of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn”, Rutgers Univ Pr

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• W.Z. Foster {head of the American Communist Party}, who had no money, went to Moscow and came back and announced that he was building a great secret machine to undermine the American labor movement and turn it over to the Red International, owned by Lenin. He began publication of an expensive magazine and proclaimed 'a thousand secret agents in a thousand communities.'

  Samuel Gompers

  Party, Community, Secret

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• Today, for many people, being a union member simply means paying dues, but in the early days there were so few of us that if a majority of the members were not active, the union ceased to exist.

  Rose Schneiderman

  Mean, People, Majority

  Rose Schneiderman, Lucy Goldthwaite (1967). “All for one”

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• there is nothing more American than the trade-union movement.

  Rose Schneiderman

  Movement, Unions, Trade

  Rose Schneiderman, Lucy Goldthwaite (1967). “All for one”

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• The labor movement has a great role to play in our country today.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Country, Play, Roles

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• They's making it worse, the labor movement got the mafia curse.

  Frank Zappa

  Work, Mafia, Movement

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• The organized labor movement as it is constituted today is as much a concomitant of a capitalist economy as is capital. Organized labor is predicated upon the basic premise of collective bargaining between employers and employees. This premise can obtain only for an employer-employee type of society. If the labor movement is to maintain its own identity and security, it must of necessity protect that kind of society.

  Saul Alinsky

  Capitalist Economy, Identity, Movement

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Reveille for Radicals”, p.27, Vintage

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