Charles E. Merrill Quotes

My parents were both union members, and I grew up hearing how important it was to empower workers and have fair labor practices.

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.

It's easy for people to strike if they're not working on a regular basis.

My grandfather was an autoworker, and I have a weapon he manufactured to protect himself from the company that he would carry to work. It's a big iron pipe with a hunk of lead on the head. I think about how far we've come as companies from those days, where workers had to protect themselves from the company.

A labor strike will tear away a lot of the good things going for this league.

I came from a family where joining a union was the expected thing to do. I've always believed that the relationship between an employer and an individual worker is fundamentally unequal.

Today, currently, business owners can go out and find out if the person they are hiring is eligible to work here or if they are not. We need to think about how we are impacting workers.

I think that people need to stand up with their backbone and not go to places where they feel like the workers aren't taken care of.

Mr. Ware has no right to discharge any of his laborers on account of their political opinion.

We must have more union members in this country to fight the political and business forces that are undermining workers in this country. The AFL-CIO has chosen the opposite approach by planning to throw even more money at politicians.

After contract negotiations and organizing, playing an active role in the political process is one of a union's most important functions. Gains won at the bargaining table or through sacrifice on the picketline can be wiped out by politicians on the state or federal level.

The strike is the weapon of the industrial jungle.

Thank God we have a system of labor where there can be a strike.

Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant.

Pullman, who has grown so rich from the toil of his workingmen, that he can riot in luxury, while he heartlessly turns these very workmen out of their tenements into the streets and leave to the tender mercies of corporate greed.

There are only two ways to bring about protection of the workers, however, legislation and unionization. So far the majority of the people in this country seem to favor unions as a more democratic and elastic method, though certain things must be dealt with by legislation

Mitchell is only a common coal miner who has worked with his hands for 15 years, and is now a labor agitator. Any negotiations with him would unduly recognize a mere rabble-rouser..

In China, the Communist Party’s suppression of free trade unions keeps cotton workers’ wages down, just as British law in the early 1800s saw to it that men and women who abandoned their ill-paid jobs and ran away could be jailed for breach of contract.

The workers who harvest our food have been systematically denied the basic rights that are granted to all other American workers. They can be fired for trying to form a union or for attempting to improve their working conditions. They are not eligible for overtime pay, disability, or even unemployment insurance.

Without a union, the people are always cheated, and they are so innocent.

In Connecticut, we have a vibrant history of advocating to ensure our workers are treated fairly and given the rights and protections they deserve. Still, we need to do more to protect all American workers.

Do not make the mistake...of thinking that a worker is a slave and that he holds his job by his employer's permission. He does not hold it by permission - but by contract, that is, by a voluntary mutual agreement. A worker can quit his job; a slave cannot.

Whatever the deal is with other countries, we want a better deal for America's workers.

I will stand with the working-class citizens over all else.

South Carolina is a 'right to work' state - a misnomer of a phrase, as the laws limits union representation of workers. It does does not guarantee workers a job or fair wages and conditions.