James P. Hoffa Quotes

Many blue-collar families struggling to pay rent would be happy to skip paying optional union dues.

Legislation has been and is still directed towards the protection of wealth, rather than towards the far more important interests of labor on which everything of value to mankind depends.

I think unionization is good public policy. I think when families secure their economic future, that's good for everyone.

My sympathies have always been for working-class people.

In the U.S. the powerful critics of austerity such as Paul Krugman and Robert Reich rightly identify the decline of 'labor' as a problem, and renewing trade unionism part of the solution. Our opportunity is to make the same case in the UK.

If we are going to reverse the race to the bottom, workers must have the right to engage in collective bargaining.

To fulfill the promise of economic opportunity, we must remain true to the principle that collective bargaining is a cornerstone of a free society and indispensable to a strong middle class.

So I will stand more steadfastly for the things I stand up for, like people who work for a living. I'd like to be able to stand that way when I go to Congress.

The inequality of bargaining power between employees who do not possess full freedom of association or actual liberty of contract, and employers who are organized in the corporate or other forms of ownership association substantially burdens and affects the flow of commerce, and tends to aggravate recurrent business depressions, by depressing wage rates and the purchasing power of wage earners.

To the ordinary working man, the sort you would meet in any pub on Saturday night, Socialism does not mean much more than better wages and shorter hours and nobody bossing you about.

There can be no distress, there can be no hard times, when labor is well paid. The man who raises his hand against the progress of the workingman raises his hand against prosperity.

What labor is demanding all over the world today is not a few material things like more dollars and fewer hours of work, but the right to a voice in the conduct of industry.

The future of Labor is the future of America.

I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails under which laborers can strike when they want to...I like the system which lets a man quit when he wants to and wish it might prevail everywhere.

Look at your [labor] strikes. They are proof that the men are desperate.

Labor is marching toward the goal of industrial democracy and contributing constructively toward a more rational arrangement of our domestic economy.

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

We must remember that the real problem is not how to produce some improvement in the condition of the working man— for that has to a certain extent been attained already— but how to secure his complete material independence.

Ten cents a day is adequate pay for a workingman.

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 progressive who knows how to talk to working-class people, and I know how to get elected in working-class districts. Because at the end of the day, the progressive agenda is what's best for working families.

We're the party that's fought for increased wages, fought for the union movement, fought to make sure that collective bargaining is not eviscerated, it's strengthened. And when we communicate those messages, we succeed.

The OPPA route is nothing new. It follows the decades-old liberal agenda on trade, health care, global warming, and mass unionization. That agenda has never brought prosperity to workers.

For me, the labor movement and public education are linked as the essential building blocks to a strong middle class and a path to the American dream. It's why I went to Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations as an undergrad and then to law school.

There is no better way to improve wages and working conditions in our country than to support the right to unionize. Throughout our history, unions have improved the lives of millions of American families, grown the middle class, and pushed our economy forward.