Dick Durbin Quotes

A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work is ever my partner’s motto.

Out of labor's struggle in Arizona came better conditions for the workers, who must everywhere, at all times, under advantage and disadvantage work out their own salvation.

My father was a member of the Teamsters Union in California, where he helped to organize better health care for workers. My mother worked for more than 20 years on an assembly line.

The workers, before all else.

It's a false choice to say we either have job safety or job growth. It's a false choice to suggest that the only way for a business to survive is to make sure workers have low wages and little or no benefits. There are ample models across this country where we've demonstrated the contrary.

Unions continue to be important for raising the standard of living for working Americans, whether or not they happen to be in a union.

A business is good if it gives a decent day's reward for a decent day's work, treats people decently, and gives them a voice at the top.

Any reasonable economist will tell you that it's nearly impossible to isolate the impact of right-to-work laws on a state's job growth. A multitude of other factors intervene. However, one thing the numbers can show is that right-to-work laws have a negative effect on the wages of workers in that state.

All workers want is a fair shake.

I am one of those men who believes that the best workingman ought to have the best pay.

Union members not only earn higher median wages; they are more likely to have paid sick leave, short-term disability, and employer-provided child care. Giving people a voice at work - the ability to organize and negotiate for their fair share of the value they helped create - is absolutely essential to a growing, vibrant middle class.

We need to give workers more control over their training, health care, and their pensions.

They only ask for a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work.

Affirm the priority of work over capital and the fact that material goods are meant for all … The priority of work over capital places an obligation in justice upon employers to consider the welfare of the workers before the increase of profits.

The priority of work over capital places an obligation in justice upon employers to consider the welfare of the workers before the increase of profits.

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.

It is essential that the worker in industry should have the status of an individual and not a mere cog in a soulless machine.

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.

I will only stop defending the rights of workers when I die.

We say, pay talent well and genius generously, but pay well also the arm that toils; pay the needle, the saw, the spade, the hoe, the mop.

When labor is strong, America is strong.

If there is to be peace in our industrial life, let the employer recognize his obligation to his employees

The shorter working day is the most essential thing in the lives of industrial workers. It means opportunities for life and self-development which are shut out by the whir of the machinery and the routine of the factory job at which the day is spent. It means also more efficiency on the job and better service to the employer.

Labor wants also pride and joy in doing good work, a sense of making or doing something beautiful or useful - to be treated with dignity and respect as brother and sister.

A reform in the relations of the employer and employed, by which shall be secured the practice of the great natural law, of one-third of time to labour, one-third to recreation, and one-third to rest, that by this, intellectual improvement and physical development may go on to that perfection which the Almighty Creator designed.