Organized Labor Quotes
Most popular organized labor quotes
Labor cannot stand still long or it will slip backward.
Unions, he [Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.] underscored, were the "first anti-poverty program" and they should be accessible to all who work for wages.
Declaring that "all labor has dignity," King stated that sanitation workers deserved a living wage and union rights, for what made labor menial was not hard and dirty work, but lack of union rights and poor conditions. As he told the Local 1199 hospital workers union a short while before he came to Memphis, "You see, no labor is really menial unless you're not getting adequate wages."
You see, no labor is really menial unless you're not getting adequate wages.
Organized labor has proved to be one of the most powerful forces in removing the blight of segregation and discrimination from our nation. Labor leaders wisely realize that the forces that are anti-Negro are usually anti-labor, and vice versa. And so organized labor is one of the Negro's strongest allies in the struggle for freedom.
The two most dynamic and cohesive liberal forces in the country are the labor movement and the Negro freedom movement. Together we can be architects of democracy.
I still believe that organized labor can be one of the most powerful instruments to do away with this evil that confronts our nation that we refer to as segregation and discrimination. It is certainly true that the forces that are anti-Negro are by and large anti-labor, and with the coming together of the powerful influence of labor and all people of goodwill in the struggle for freedom and human dignity, I can assure you that we have a powerful instrument.
Encouraging worker ideas and participation in decision making is no longer just an option for American business. It is a necessity. Employees come to the workplace today with expectations that their recommendations will be given serious consideration.
Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. Judas Iscariot sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of a commission in the British Army. The modern strikebreaker sells his birthright, his country, his wife, his children and his fellow men for an unfulfilled promise from his employer, trust or corporation.
Dammit, the law is the law and the law says they cannot strike. If they strike, they have quit their jobs.
The strike is the weapon of the industrial jungle.
Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the labourer, unless under compulsion from society.
It was the labour movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label.
The more that social democracy develops, grows, and becomes stronger, the more the enlightened masses of workers will take their own destinies, the leadership of their movement, and the determination of its direction into their own hands.
