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You have got to unite in the same labor union and in the same political party and strike and vote together, and the hour you do that, the world is yours.
Sep 10, 2025
Labor unions have a long history of benefitting all workers, even those who are not members of unions, because everyone's wages go up. If we don't increase membership - and membership in labor unions is going down because of the attacks against organized labor - it's something every single American, whether they're officially in a union or not, should be concerned about. It's a spiral. It's a weakening of the middle class and our economy can't sustain that.
Labor is not fighting for a larger slice of the national pie-labor is fighting for a larger pie.
All that harms labor is treason to America.
The only effective answer to organized greed is organized labor.
The gap between the rich and poor is widening fast.
If we take back the labor unions, the legitimate businesses, eventually they become just another street gang. Spiritually, psychologically, they've always been just a street gang.
Let the workers organize. Let the toilers assemble. Let their crystallized voice proclaim their injustices and demand their privileges. Let all thoughtful citizens sustain them, for the future of Labor is the future of America.
If capitalism is fair then unionism must be. If men and women have a right to capitalize their ideas and the resources of their country, then that implies the right of men and women to capitalize their labor.
If I went to work in a factory the first thing I'd do is join a union.
The Million Man March was held on a Monday. Most marches were always held on a weekend and most marches were paid for by philanthropic groups and organizations and labor unions, etc. So, the people who came did not necessarily have to make a great sacrifice to be there.
Join the union, girls, and together say Equal Pay for Equal Work.
If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves.
When fewer workers have unions, the standard of living falls for everyone and the gap between the rich and poor grows.
Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne.
The Government as Substitute Husband did for women what labor unions still have not accomplished for men. And men pay dues for labor unions; the taxpayer pays the dues for feminism. Feminism and government soon become taxpayer-supported women's unions.
History is a great teacher. Now everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them.
We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.
Labor # Unions are the leading force for # democratization and # progress .
There's an ethic that says: 'You don't run off to the church for the sacraments of salvation, you establish a personal relationship with God. You don't run off to the courts for justice, you settle it yourself. You don't run off to labor unions to sort out your work relations, you can take this job and shove it if you don't like what you're doing.
The biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for the workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians.
One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.
It was the labor 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.
I want you to pledge to yourselves in this convention to stand as one solid army against the foes of human labor. Think of the thousands who are killed every year and there is no redress for it. We will fight until the mines are made secure and human life valued more than props. Look things in the face. Don't' fear a governor; don't fear anybody. You pay the governor; he has the right to protect you. You are the biggest part of the population in the state. You create its wealth, so I say, let the fight go on; if nobody else will keep on, I will.
The American Labor Movement has consistently demonstrated its devotion to the public interest. It is, and has been, good for all America.
In my college years, I worked as a union labor organizer. I was just one of the many workers trying to do my part to help the community.
Equality is the heart and essence of democracy, freedom, and justice, equality of opportunity in industry, in labor unions, schools and colleges, government, politics, and before the law. There must be no dual standards of justice, no dual rights, privileges, duties, or responsibilities of citizenship. No dual forms of freedom.
It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that it have free and independent labor unions.
Finance ministers and central bank governors have the seats at the table, not labor unions or labor ministers. Finance ministers and central bank governors are linked to financial communities in their countries, so they push policies that reflect the viewpoints and interests of the financial community and barely hear the voices of those who are the first victims of dictated policies.
Speaking as a human being, not as a businessman - the unions are great. The unions are great for the working people because they protect you, but I didn't see them that way as a young man. First of all, the papers would connect them with thee communists - labor unions were communists.
Any Hamas or Zionist type who tries to interfere with the labor unions and grab the money will be marched to the guillotines and subsequently beheaded. And isn't that easier and more productive than some endless, bloody conflict? So sayeth the gospel of common sense. Happy Mother's Day.
The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life.
When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose?'
Tariffs, government contracts, naval and military spending, nationalized industries, tax policy, social welfare, the legal privileging of labor unions were among the means at the disposal of the governing class to exploit the public at large for the benefits of its various clienteles.
The history of the labor movement needs to be taught in every school in this land. America is a living testimonial to what free men and women, organized in free democratic trade unions can do to make a better life. We ought to be proud of it!
All of the youth ferment on campuses is a very good thing. Lots of people are being permanently transformed and will do good thing throughout their lives. However, young people must be careful not to be coopted, even by labor unions and the like. They must keep their eye on a radical transformation of society.
If you don't know, your labor unions and community organizations, there's somebody you can ask to guide you. A lot of people, especially in the Latino community, they have this big ballot and all these names and propositions on it, and they say 'Oh my God'. They don't know which of these to vote for, so they don't vote.
If you go to the city of Washington, and you examine the pages of the Congressional Directory, you will find that almost all of those corporation lawyers and cowardly politicians, members of Congress, and misrepresentatives of the masses - you will find that almost all of them claim, in glowing terms, that they have risen from the ranks to places of eminence and distinction. I am very glad that I cannot make that claim for myself. I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks.
Labor in this country is independent and proud. It has not to ask the patronage of capital, but capital solicits the aid of labor.
Every advance in this half-century-Social Security, civil rights, Medicare, aid to education, one after another-came with the support and leadership of American Labor.
I'm a lobbyist and had a career lobbying. The guy who gets elected or the lady who gets elected president of the United States will immediately be lobbying. They would be advocating to the Congress, they'll be lobbying our allies and our adversaries overseas. They'll be asking the business community and labor unions.
It is to the real advantage of every producer, every manufacturer and every merchant to cooperate in the improvement of working conditions, because the best customer of American industry is the well-paid worker.
Faced with such insecurity, labor unions seek a solution in demands for higher wages, shorter hours, pensions, and such things. But this approach takes monopolistic capitalism for granted, and accepts the unnatural division between property and responsibility as permanent. A much more radical solution is apt to come, and this may take either of two forms.
Historically, labor unions arose when people had gotten a taste of a different lifestyle and were willing to pay a lot more for their basic livelihood and had gotten into a fix they couldn't get out of - because they had accepted the unacceptable to begin with. Accepting something you have to form a labor union to fight after the fact only tells me that people were acting against their own best (or even good) interests for a long time. I don't see any rational, coherent explanation for this sort of behavior in humans, but it's all over the place.
The president's attempted diktat takes money from bondholders and gives it a labor union that delivers money and votes for him.... Shaking down lenders for the benefit of political donors is recycled corruption and the abuse of power.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Our movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people. . . . There is not a right too long denied to which we do not aspire in order to achieve; there is not a wrong too long endured that we are not determined to abolish.
Every piece of progressive social legislation passed by Congress in the 20th century bears a union label.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.