Robert Reich Quotes

Instead of focusing on attacking unions and the labor movement, we need to find ways to strengthen and empower workers so we can put more money in the pockets of middle class families.

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

While most American labor unions have struggled for the past several decades, professional baseball players comprise one of the strongest packs of organized workers in the world.

The unions used to sell security. They can’t deliver any more.

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

I fight like a daggone wild man for labor 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.

Although unions may be good for a worker, singular, they are not always good for workers, plural. Especially when it comes to finding a job.

My father was a meat worker. He was a union organizer in the meat workers union.

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

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

The only way a workingman can get anything is by collective bargaining, and by saying "If you don't give us a raise, not only will I quit but we will all quit and tie up your business

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

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

The labor movement has lifted more people out of poverty than all the programs in the country.

Unquestionably unions and their leaders are not always wise and fair any more than any other human beings. There are only two ways to bring about protection of the workers, however, legislation and unionization. So far the majority of the people in this country seem to favor unions as a more democratic and elastic method, though certain things must be dealt with by legislation.

Modern trade unions understood that deciphering a balance sheet was more important than decoding Das Kapital.

The labor movement was a reaction to capitalism.

Before there were unions, there was no middle class.

Many people have mixed views about unions, but unions used to give people some measure of control at work. They gave them a social life and political representation in Washington, which doesn't really exist anymore.

I am a huge believer in organized labor. Period. Full stop.

My parents were both union members, and I grew up hearing how important it was to empower workers and have fair labor practices.

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

I was an organizer in the Food, Agricultural and Tobacco Workers Union down in North Carolina.

I sometimes think that unions don't understand that we live in a free society, and people have the right to not select union representation if they don't want it.