Eric Liu Quotes

Unions have been the best anti-poverty program that actually worked and did not cost the government a dime. But as unions grow smaller- not stronger- our ability to act as an economic mechanism to distribute the gains of our work and raise all workers' wages and benefits up is disappearing.

Power? Nine workers out of ten still unorganized, and union dues going to bribe middle class politicians. You call that power?

All too often miners, and indeed other trade unionists, underestimate the economic strength they have.

A divided labor movement hurts the prospects of union members and it makes me very angry.

Trade unionism means the enslavement of the workers by the bourgeoisie.

When union membership goes down, so do wages.

When you have powerful unions, you have a working class that is politicized.

The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life.

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.

The road to social justice for the farm worker is the road of unionization. Our cause, our strike against table grapes and our international boycott are all founded upon our deep conviction that the form of collective self-help, which is unionization, holds far more hope for the farm worker than any other single approach, whether public or private. This conviction is what brings spirit, high hope and optimism to everything we do.

When [Steven Lerner] says that unions and so forth are "dead," he's talking about clout. He's talking about power. But "community organizations," the ACORN types, these are the groups that can successfully organize a strike - a strike meaning people just stop paying back on their loans.

We'll be competitive with organized labor, we're also competitive with regular, unorganized labor, working people who see their stakes and their future in the plans we're putting forward to move Massachusetts forward.

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

I think we will see a united labor movement again. When workers unite they're stronger. The same goes for unions.

The trade union movement represents the organized economic power of the workers... It is in reality the most potent and the most direct social insurance the workers can establish.

I believe in trade unionism, and I believe in democracy, in democratic trade unionism.

In the heart of the Great Depression, millions of American workers did something they'd never done before: they joined a union. Emboldened by the passage of the Wagner Act, which made collective bargaining easier, unions organized industries across the country, remaking the economy.

What one state could not get alone, what one miner against a powerful corporation could not achieve, can be achieved by the union.

I will never apologize for standing up for my fellow Teamsters and all American workers.

Unions are about the collective leverage, the power of numbers versus the power of capital.

I think you'll see if you look at 'Up', we've focused a lot on labor (and the forces trying to keep labor down) and have featured everything from Wal Mart workers, to on-the-ground organizers, to union presidents to restaurant workers sitting at the table sharing their experience and expertise.

Governor Scott Walker didn't know who he was messing with when he picked a fight with the hard-working union folks of Wisconsin. He must have forgotten that Wisconsin is the Badger State. And badgers are scrappy little creatures. We may look cute, warm and fuzzy, but we have a fighting spirit.

We could see the Teamsters coming in from New Jersey, the AFL-CIO from Chicago. You could see all of the people being bused in.

The question is always 'What is the role of a labor movement?' How much is about collective bargaining, how much is about social change for all workers?

I'm a lifelong believer in trade unionism.