Zygmunt Bauman Quotes

The labor movement is organized upon a principle that the strong shall help the weak.

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.

I believe in trade unionism, and I believe in democracy, in democratic trade unionism.

What until then seemed impossible to achieve has become a fact of life. We have won the right to association in trade unions independent from the authorities, founded and shaped by the working people themselves.

I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement.

My problem with unions is they breed mediocrity.

I'm a lifelong believer in trade unionism.

Organized labor, if they're doing a responsible job, is going to organize the pooling of small amounts of money to protect the interests of the people who are not rich.

A divided labor movement hurts the prospects of union members and it makes me very angry.

Many of those who helped to lay the foundations of the trade union movement were men who had been through the experience of Socialism and found their way to sounder policies.

We will stand by our friends and administer a stinging rebuke to men or parties who are either indifferent, negligent, or hostile, and, wherever opportunity affords, to secure the election of intelligent, honest, earnest trade unionists, with clear, unblemished, paid-up union cards in their possession.

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 origin of the labor movement lies in self-defense.

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

Labor can and will become its own employer through co-operative association.

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

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.

It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins.

I have always been fully persuaded that, through co-operation, labor could become its own employer.

And the spirit of revolution will not die while the hearts of these workers continue to beat.

What one state could not get alone, what one miner against a powerful corporation could not achieve, can be achieved by the union.

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.