Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

Trade unions are a force for good - a force for a more equal society.

I'm a lifelong believer in trade unionism.

Labor has no quarrel with capital, as such. It is merely the possessors of capital who refuse to accord to labor the recognition, the right, the justice which is the laborers' due, with whom we contend.

Labor is marching toward the goal of industrial democracy and contributing constructively toward a more rational arrangement of our domestic economy.

It's impossible to write the history of freedom in this country without telling how trade unions have contributed to it.

The labor movement has lifted more people out of poverty than all the programs in the country.

Labor is not fighting for a larger slice of the national pie. Labor is fighting for a larger pie.

I believe in corporations. I believe in trade unions. Both have come to stay and are necessities in our present industrial system, But where, either one or the other, there develops corruption or mere brutal indifference to the rights of others … then the offender, whether union or corporation, must be fought.

The principles of fairness and equality for working men and women are deeply interwoven within the fabric of our nation's history.

If capitalism is fair then unionism must be. If men and women have a right to capitalize their ideas and the resources of their country, then that implies the right of men and women to capitalize their labor.

Had the employers of past generations all of them dealt fairly with their men there would have been no unions.

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.

Organized labor is the only way to have fair distribution of wealth...

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

I think organized labor is a necessary part of democracy. Organized labor is the only way to have fair distribution of wealth.

Where trade unions are most firmly organized, there are the rights of the people most respected.

The organized workers of America, free in their industrial life, conscious partners in production, secure in their homes and enjoying a decent standard of living, will prove the finest bulwark against the intrusion of alien doctrines of government.

I had watched for many years and seen how a few rich families held much of Argentina's wealth and power in their hands. So Peron and the government brought in an eight hour working day, sickness pay and fair wages to give poor workers a fair go .

Let the workers organize. Let the toilers assemble. Let their crystallized voice proclaim their injustices and demand their privileges. Let all thoughtful citizens sustain them, for the future of Labor is the future of America.

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?

We are with you in this work. Workingmen must form a party of their own, take charge of the government, dispose gilded fraud, and put honest toil in power.

This conviction brought me, in the summer of 1978, to the Free Trade Unions - formed by a group of courageous and dedicated people who came out in the defense of the workers' rights and dignity.

What shall the workers do? Sit idly by and see the vast resources of nature and the human mind be utilized and monopolized for the benefit of the comparative few? No. The laborers must learn to think and act, and soon, too, that only by the power of organization, and common concert of action, can either their manhood be maintained, their rights to life (work to sustain it) be recognized, and liberty and rights secured.

The labor question is the same the world over, and laborers of the world should clasp hands for their common wealth.

The United Mine Workers and the CIO have paid cash on the barrel for every piece of legislation that we have gotten…