Arthur Scargill Quotes

There's a feeling that strength is determined by the size of a union. That clearly is nonsense.

The AFL-CIO is a structure that divides workers' strength by allowing each union to organize in any industry, then bargain on its own, even when workers share a common employer.

A divided labor movement hurts the prospects of union members and it makes me very angry.

The trade union, which originated under the European system, destroys liberty.

Many of those who helped to lay the foundations of the trade union movement were men who had been through the experience of Socialism and found their way to sounder policies.

If the workers took a notion they could stop all speeding trains; every ship upon the ocean they can tie with mighty chains.

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

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.

The General Strike has taught the working class more in four days than years of talking could have done.

I believe in trade unionism, and I believe in democracy, in democratic trade unionism.

In the heart of the Great Depression, millions of American workers did something they'd never done before: they joined a union. Emboldened by the passage of the Wagner Act, which made collective bargaining easier, unions organized industries across the country, remaking the economy.

Unions are about the collective leverage, the power of numbers versus the power of capital.

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

Trade unionism is not a discovery or a formula. It grew and evolved slowly out of the needs of human experience.

The labor question is the same the world over, and laborers of the world should clasp hands for their common wealth.

Solidarity Forever

The methods by which a trade union can alone act are necessarily destructive; its organization is necessarily tyrannical.

Regardless of the degree of class consciousness of their members, the trade unions are, by their very nature, driven on to the revolutionary goal.

No strike is a loss or failure to the workers, even if the point sought is not gained for the time being. If naught else they teach the capitalists that they are expensive luxuries.

The number of men out on strike exceeds that of any other industrial contest in the history of our country.

The history of all countries shows that, by its own efforts, the working class can develop only a trade-union consciousness—that is, the realization of the need of getting together in unions in order to fight employers and to demand from the government the passing of laws necessary for the workers.

Trade unionism means the enslavement of the workers by the bourgeoisie.

Power? Nine workers out of ten still unorganized, and union dues going to bribe middle class politicians. You call that power?

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.