Elaine Chao Quotes

If you look at the future of the Democratic Party, things like raising the minimum wage - Democrats need to get behind raising the minimum wage and be clear on where we stand on trade deals.

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.

In the U.S. the powerful critics of austerity such as Paul Krugman and Robert Reich rightly identify the decline of 'labor' as a problem, and renewing trade unionism part of the solution. Our opportunity is to make the same case in the UK.

Workers want to be paid an honest, fair wage for the work they do. They want to be able to provide for their families by being justly compensated for their part in helping grow the U.S. economy. They deserve to be able to put food on the table and receive health care and other benefits.

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.

Instead of focusing on attacking unions and the labor movement, we need to find ways to strengthen and empower workers so we can put more money in the pockets of middle class families.

We've always been in favor of improved wages for workers. When you have a strong middle class, they want to buy more stuff at Costco.

We didn't start this war - the right wing did. We're tired of seeing good-paying jobs shipped overseas. This fight is about the economy, it's about jobs and it's about rebuilding America.

Wage theft, worker rights and workplace discrimination should not be swept under the rug. The United States cannot have a functional economy where all the gains go to the corporate class while all the pain goes to regular workers.

If you think about it, candidate Obama, Sen. Obama, was running on sort of long-run economic issues, like restoring prosperity to the middle class, dealing with the perennial problem of health care in the United States. He talked a lot about the budget deficit, about the need to transition to clean energy.

If we are going to reverse the race to the bottom, workers must have the right to engage in collective bargaining.

Congress has turned its back on America's working families. There are Teamster families in every congressional district in America, and those families vote. Those who would oppose these families have done so at their own political peril.

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?

In 1968, the sanitation workers of Memphis tried to form a union. The city resisted. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life.

We never accept low wages as the driving force for employment or growth.

To the ordinary working man, the sort you would meet in any pub on Saturday night, Socialism does not mean much more than better wages and shorter hours and nobody bossing you about.

We can't afford to take minimum wage jobs that don't provide health care .... Universal health care is what we are seeking.

The global economy shall not run without the consent of the workers….We demand fair trade, not free trade.

What the labor movement did in this country is to make sure that capitalism worked.

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

People against the minimum wage say that many workers will lose their jobs. I haven’t ever met a minimum wage worker who didn’t say “Go for it!”

There are only two ways to bring about protection of the workers, however, legislation and unionization. So far the majority of the people in this country seem to favor unions as a more democratic and elastic method, though certain things must be dealt with by legislation

And I believe we should strengthen unions which have formed the bedrock of a strong middle class. It should be easier to bargain collectively. That's not only fair, it makes workers more productive, it strengthens our economy.

When I travel around the country and talk about the need to raise the minimum wage or expand access to paid leave, I often talk about the need for us to reject false choices.

I stand with the working-class citizens.