Mary Heaton Vorse Quotes

No strike has ever been lost.

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

The picket line is the best place to train organizers. One day on the picket line is where a man makes his commitment. The longer on the picket line, the stronger the commitment. A lot of workers think they make their commitment by walking off the job when nobody sees them. But you get a guy to walk off the field when his boss is watching and, in front of the other guys, throw down his tools and march right to the picket line, that is the guy who makes our strike. The picket line is a beautiful thing because it makes a man more human.

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

At first everyone predicted that it would be impossible to hold these divergent people together, but aside from the skilled men, some of whom belonged to craft unions, comparatively few went back to the mills. And as a whole, the strike was conducted with little violence.

Strikes are a crime ... the law of jungles and primitive societies.

The strike is the weapon of the industrial jungle.

Strikes (1981) are real life. It took up seven weeks of real time. That's a fifth of a pregnancy.

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

The life of the village became more and more affected by strikes and lock-outs.

I was a union member in my youth as well and I went on strike, and I don't think it solved anything. It only made the situation worse for everyone involved.

A labor strike will tear away a lot of the good things going for this league.

If the adjustment made by a court can be accepted or not, it will be refused whenever the men can gain more by continuing the strike, with whatever of violence that involves.

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

I grew up and lived in a Britain in which strikes and the threat of strikes had become part of the social fabric - and it was not very nice.

Strikes always leave a bad taste with everyone.

With the newspaper strike on, I wouldn't consider dying.

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.

The courts may have their finest hours, but they'll not break us. We will not settle for one penny less than our objectives. The judge can drop dead in his black robes. I don't care if I rot in jail. I will not call off the strike.

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.

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.

A strike cannot be tolerated under any circumstances for it would be a stab at our armed might.