Whitey Herzog Quotes

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.

Then came a big strike. About 100 girls went out. The result was a victory, which netted us - I mean the girls - $2 increase in our wages on the average.

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.

At the time there was a hospital strike in New York and the Catholic hospitals were part of a general consortium, and the head of the consortium had decided that they were finally going to replace some of the striking workers. And I hear [John] O'Connor yelling, 'Over my dead body will you replace any of those workers! They have a right to strike.' So I figured, 'This is interesting.'

[Ronald] Reagan bitterly hated unions and wanted them destroyed. This began with the air controllers' strike and went on from there.

I have been very interested in labor movement. If I could have wished another life, I would have loved to be a pioneer woman in the beginning of labor movement.

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

My own idea is that if the men hold any meetings or attempt to form any organization, we should be prepared to be fully informed of all that goes on and unhesitatingly discharge any men connected with this movement. In this way, our peace will be secure for a long time, and it will be easily done if taken at the start.

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

I'm prepared to fight as hard as I can against unions entering the University on behalf of our students.

Your strike will not win. You cannot be allowed to succeed.

People have to be reminded that unions played a very historic role in our economy.

I'm not going to stop beating up on the unions.

By the mid-1950s, more than a third of all America workers in the private sector were unionized. And the unions demanded and received a fair slice of the American pie.

I'm from a working-class background, and I've experienced that worry of not having a job next week because the unions are going on strike.

The unions used to sell security. They can’t deliver any more.

Trade unionism is not a discovery or a formula. It grew and evolved slowly out of the needs of human experience.

After contract negotiations and organizing, playing an active role in the political process is one of a union's most important functions. Gains won at the bargaining table or through sacrifice on the picketline can be wiped out by politicians on the state or federal level.

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.

The trade union, which originated under the European system, destroys liberty.

The methods by which a trade union can alone act are necessarily destructive; its organization is necessarily tyrannical.

The strike is the weapon of the industrial jungle.

No labor strike will last more than 15 minutes.

We back Solidarity [the Polish trade union], and bust our unions.