John Ruskin Quotes

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 have been very interested in labor movement. If I could have wished another life, I would have loved to be a pioneer woman in the beginning of labor movement.

While the men of the steel industry were going through blood and gas in defense of their rights and their homes and their families, elsewhere on the far-flung C.I.O. front the hosts of labor were advancing and intelligent and permanent progress was being made.

The employer class is less indispensable in the modern organization of industries because the laboring men themselves possess sufficient intelligence to organize into co-operative relation and enjoy the entire benefits of their own labor.

And the success of the union movement, historically, has always been to benefit all working men and women - not just people who belong to the union.

Trade unions are a force for good - a force for a more equal society.

The working class owes all honor and respect to the first men who planted the standard of labor solidarity on the hostile frontier of unorganized industry.

I'm a big believer in the value of labor unions and with what collective effort gets people.

It's impossible to write the history of freedom in this country without telling how trade unions have contributed to it.

And I believe we should strengthen unions which have formed the bedrock of a strong middle class. It should be easier to bargain collectively. That's not only fair, it makes workers more productive, it strengthens our economy.

The men in the steel industry who sacrificed their all were nor merely aiding their fellows at home but were adding strength to the cause of their comrades in all industry.

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

This led me to understand that trade unionism, the instrument of working-class liberation and of social change could, and indeed should, be also an instrument of industrial progress.

People have to be reminded that unions played a very historic role in our economy.

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.

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 come from labor country. My mom was a teacher and was very involved in the teachers' union.

The strongest form of fight against the capitalist class is the strike. Strikes are necessary, ever again, against the capitalists’ tendency to increase their profits by lowering wages and increase the hours or the intensity of work.

The task is before us. We have a labor movement that is completely discouraged and demoralized. We have an organized labor movement that is unable on any front to put up an effective struggle against the drive of destruction organized by the masters….the labor unions of America are being broken up because there is not sufficient unified understanding, because there is not sufficient leadership to save them.

The Church fully supports the right of workers to form unions or other associations to secure their rights to fair wages and working conditions.

We back Solidarity [the Polish trade union], and bust our unions.

It is gratifying that societies of this kind [labor unions], composed either of workers alone or of workers and employers together, are being formed everywhere, and it is truly to be desired that they grow in number and in active vigor.

It is essential that there be organization of labor…. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.

The weapon of political action. That is going to be the main fighting weapon of all labor, international as well as national, if we are going to do those things that we are in business to do as a labor union