Organized Labor Quotes

• There is a middle class in America for only one reason: organized labor. If not for organized labor, where would you find a job where you had some sense that you had a shot of leaving behind something better than you inherited?.

  Joe Biden

  Jobs, Class, America

  AFF Presidential Forum in Washington DC, March 14, 2007.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• The only effective answer to organized greed is organized labor.

  Thomas R. Donahue

  Greed, Answers, Unions

  "When Unions are Strong, Americans Enjoy the Fruits of Their Labor" by David Morris, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 8, 2011.

  53 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  9 Copy quote

• 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, Labour Movement, People

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

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  John L. Lewis

  Strong, Labour Movement, Principles

  39 Copy quote

• A basic assumption shapes most Americans’ mindset about labor: the belief that the death of unions isn’t my problem because I’m not in a union. That assumption is wrong. Even if you aren’t a member, your pay is influenced by the strength or weakness of organized labor. The presence of unions sets off a wage race to the top. Their absence sets off a race to the bottom.

  Eric Liu

  Race, Shapes, Unions

  50 Copy quote

• 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, Labour Movement

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

  87 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Bill Haywood

  Hands, Class, Pockets

  49 Copy quote

• 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

  Labour Movement, Realization, Today

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

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  84 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think it is a wise course for laborers to unite to defend their interests.... I think the employer who declines to deal with organized labor and to recognize it as a proper element in the settlement of wage controversies is behind the times.... Of course, when organized labor permits itself to sympathize with violent methods or undue duress, it is not entitled to our sympathy.

  William Howard Taft

  Wise, Thinking, Elements

  15 Copy quote

• It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that it have free and independent labor unions.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Independent, Unions, Characteristics

  33 Copy quote

• Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior ofcapital, and deserves muchthe higher consideration.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Independent Women, Dignity Of Work, Labor Day

  "Leadership Lessons of Abraham Lincoln: Apply the Principles of the Sixteenth President to Your Own Work and Life".

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Honesty, Character, Men

  The Railroad Trainman, November 1909.

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Dream, Party, Men

  110 Copy quote

• With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed.

  Clarence Darrow

  Men, Organization, Labor Day

  The Railroad Trainman, November 1909.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Men, Choices, Democracy

  Dwight D. Eisenhower, Alfred Dupont Chandler, Louis Galambos (1978). “The papers: The chief of staff”

  71 Copy quote

  Show source

• Join the union, girls, and together say Equal Pay for Equal Work.

  Susan B. Anthony

  Girl, Equal Pay, Diversity

  The Revolution, 8 Oct. 1869

  76 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every advance in this half-century-Social Security, civil rights, Medicare, aid to education, one after another-came with the support and leadership of American Labor.

  Jimmy Carter

  Rights, Support, Presidential

  United States. President (1977-1981 : Carter), Jimmy Carter (1980). “Jimmy Carter”

  40 Copy quote

  Show source

• If capitalism is fair then unionism must be. If men and women have a right to capitalize their ideas and the resources of their country, then that implies the right of men and women to capitalize their labor.

  Frank Lloyd Wright

  Country, Men, Ideas

  51 Copy quote

• 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.

  85 Copy quote

  Show source

• Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Work, Independent, Labor Day

  Annual Message to Congress, 3 Dec. 1861

  100 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Heart, Giving, Salary

  "Labor’s Fight Is OUR Fight" by Dave Johnson, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 29, 2012.

  96 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  107 Copy quote

• Organized labor is the only way to have fair distribution of wealth...

  Dolores Huerta

  Way, Distribution Of Wealth, Fairs

  "It’s the Little Things: Obama Insults Poland, Awards Medal of Freedom to Socialist Icons". "The Rush Limbaugh Show", www.rushlimbaugh.com. May 30, 2012.

  57 Copy quote

  Show source