Walter Wellman Quotes

The strike is the weapon of the industrial jungle.

Mitchell is only a common coal miner who has worked with his hands for 15 years, and is now a labor agitator. Any negotiations with him would unduly recognize a mere rabble-rouser..

The task is before us. We have a labor movement that is completely discouraged and demoralized. We have an organized labor movement that is unable on any front to put up an effective struggle against the drive of destruction organized by the masters….the labor unions of America are being broken up because there is not sufficient unified understanding, because there is not sufficient leadership to save them.

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

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

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.

The dissolution of the trade unions was in the air then.

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 own idea is that if the men hold any meetings or attempt to form any organization, we should be prepared to be fully informed of all that goes on and unhesitatingly discharge any men connected with this movement. In this way, our peace will be secure for a long time, and it will be easily done if taken at the start.

When the unions were fighting me 45 years ago, they could never beat me.

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

The labor union is a great scheme to interrupt work. It speeds up loafing

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

The denial by employers of the right of employees to organize and the refusal by employers to accept the procedure of collective bargaining lead to strikes and other forms of industrial strife or unrest, which have the intent or the necessary effect of burdening or obstructing commerce.

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

After contract negotiations and organizing, playing an active role in the political process is one of a union's most important functions. Gains won at the bargaining table or through sacrifice on the picketline can be wiped out by politicians on the state or federal level.

The strongest form of fight against the capitalist class is the strike. Strikes are necessary, ever again, against the capitalists’ tendency to increase their profits by lowering wages and increase the hours or the intensity of work.

No society can tolerate strikes that endanger the general welfare, such as a strike that shuts down an entire industry. Nor can any government tolerate a strike aimed at its authority. But the “right to strike” is absolutely necessary to the cohesion, if not indeed to the survival, of the union; without it it cannot discharge its function.

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

Labor cannot on any terms surrender the right to strike.

No matter what the motive of the employer, any strike aimed at him is in physical fact a strike against ourselves and our country. No matter if he claims or seems to be in non-essential production, no strike is proper, for strikes are infectious and damaging to morale.

Not a penny off the pay. Not a minute on the day.