Labor Conflict Quotes

War between the proletariat and the capitalist for their respective shares in the produce; on one side, wages, on the other, profits; each side exerting itself to carry off a maximum. Man becomes a wolf for his fellow-man. It is a question of eating one’s brother or being eaten by him. War between workers and workers for the sharing of wages. War between capitalists and capitalists for the sharing of profits.

I think we have to be fair in saying at this point that neither Roosevelt nor Lewis realized the peril to which they were exposing both the unions and the country.

I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half.

The focus of our public discourse has been on how American companies are competing with Japanese, German, and other foreign companies. What this allows us to ignore is how each of those American companies is really in competition with the families of the workers. That's the real competition.

The root of the worker’s resistance to technological change is the conflict between labor as a commodity and labor as a resource. Increased productivity imposes upon the worker a risk of obsolescence.

Where wages command labor, as in the non-slaveholding States, there necessarily takes place between labor and capital a conflict, which leads, in process of time, to disorder, anarchy, and revolution if not counteracted by some appropriate and strong constitutional provision. Such is not the case in the slaveholding States.

Starting with [Ronald] Regan it became quite open, the attack on unions. It wasn't the Pinkertons anymore, but it was just not applying the laws.

It ill behooves one who has supped at labor's table and who has been sheltered in labor's house to curse with equal fervor and fine impartiality both labor and its adversaries when they become locked in deadly embrace.

ONLY DANGER SAN FRANCISCO STRIKE IS THAT MAYOR IS BADLY FRIGHTENED AND HIS FEAR INFECTED ENTIRE CITY

There is and always has been in an advanced stage of wealth and civilization, a conflict between labor and capital.

The country blacksmith who employs no journeyman is never conscious of any conflict between the capital invested in his anvil, hammer and bellows, and the labor he performs with them, because in fact, there is none.

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