Harry Bridges Quotes

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.

I will never apologize for standing up for my fellow Teamsters and all American workers.

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?

And if you are going to truly stand with workers, it also means embracing solidarity, not attempting through lame talking points to pit union workers against non-union workers.

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.

...the workers aren't going to stop struggling. They're going to struggle to have a union and they have the right to have it. The police repression and the grower indifference to the workers' demands for recognition cannot go unheard so we're going to keep on struggling until we get that recognition.

The road to social justice for the farm worker is the road of unionization. Our cause, our strike against table grapes and our international boycott are all founded upon our deep conviction that the form of collective self-help, which is unionization, holds far more hope for the farm worker than any other single approach, whether public or private. This conviction is what brings spirit, high hope and optimism to everything we do.

It is time that all Americans realized that the place of labor is side by side with the businessman and with the farmer, and not one-degree lower.

The labor movement has a great role to play in our country today.

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.

And I think we understand we cannot make social change for all workers until we have enough strength, membership strength, and at the same time having membership strength and only making change for a limited group of workers is not what our country really needs for people that work.

To denigrate the union movement in this way is to denigrate the right and the ability of people who are not rich to organize and to accomplish things together.

I came from a family where joining a union was the expected thing to do. I've always believed that the relationship between an employer and an individual worker is fundamentally unequal.

This led me to understand that trade unionism, the instrument of working-class liberation and of social change could, and indeed should, be also an instrument of industrial progress.

Everything is produced by the workers, and the minute they try to get something by their unions they meet all the opposition that can be mustered by those who now get what they produce.

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

I think you'll see if you look at 'Up', we've focused a lot on labor (and the forces trying to keep labor down) and have featured everything from Wal Mart workers, to on-the-ground organizers, to union presidents to restaurant workers sitting at the table sharing their experience and expertise.

I'm a lifelong believer in trade unionism.

We must have more union members in this country to fight the political and business forces that are undermining workers in this country. The AFL-CIO has chosen the opposite approach by planning to throw even more money at politicians.

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.

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

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