John L. Lewis Quotes

That's the Rebel Girl, That's the Rebel Girl. To the working class she's a precious pearl. She brings courage, pride and joy To the fighting Rebel Boy We've had girls before, but we need some more In the Industrial Workers of the World For it's great to fight for freedom With a Rebel Girl

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

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

The Labor Community is carrying on … a very significant and instructive struggle.

The hospital strikers have demonstrated that you don't get a job done unless you show the Man you're not afraid...If you're not willing to pay that price, then you don't deserve the rewards or benefits that go along with it.

It was the spirit of the workers that was dangerous. They are always marching and singing. The tired, gray crowds ebbing and flowing perpetually into the mills had waked and opened their months to sing.

Solidarity Forever

Organize! Educate! Agitate!

A movement is only composed of people moving. To feel its warmth and motion around us is the end as well as the means.

It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins.

Community organizing is all about building grassroots support. It's about identifying the people around you with whom you can create a common, passionate cause. And it's about ignoring the conventional wisdom of company politics and instead playing the game by very different rules.

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?

The strike is the weapon of the oppressed, of men capable of appreciating justice and having the courage to resist wrong and contend for principle. The nation had for its cornerstone a strike.

Show me a country in which there are no strikes and I'll show you that country is which there is no liberty.

Don't waste any time mourning—organize!

Stand in back of me and we will make this town union free. You are either with me or against me.

The consumer boycott is the only open door in the dark corridor of nothingness down which farm workers have had to walk for many years. It is a gate of hope through which they expect to find the sunlight of a better life for themselves and their families.

The picket line is the best place to train organizers. One day on the picket line is where a man makes his commitment. The longer on the picket line, the stronger the commitment. A lot of workers think they make their commitment by walking off the job when nobody sees them. But you get a guy to walk off the field when his boss is watching and, in front of the other guys, throw down his tools and march right to the picket line, that is the guy who makes our strike. The picket line is a beautiful thing because it makes a man more human.

People think that we're engaged with identity politics. The truth is that we're doing what the labor movement has always done - organizing people who are at the bottom.

Don't mourn, Organise

We are tired of words, of betrayals, of indifference...they years are gone when the farm worker said nothing an did nothing to help himself...Now we have new faith. Through our strong will, our movement is changing these conditions...We shall be heard.

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

You've got to stop dividing yourselves. You got to organize.

If we're all together, we have money, and we start to organize, you're going to see the Teamsters Union start to bloom.

58% of the American public are with us. We're preaching to the choir, but the choir's not singing, if all of the 58% started singing, this war would end.