Calvin Coolidge Quotes

Labor cannot on any terms surrender the right to strike.

Thank God we have a system of labor where there can be a strike.

Show me a country in which there are no strikes and I'll show you that country is which there is no liberty.

Labor unions are the worst thing that ever struck the earth because they take away a man's independence.

Look at your [labor] strikes. They are proof that the men are desperate.

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.

We are not a nation of strikes and inaction. We will not be preached at by militant unionists with a crap whippet and a chip on each shoulder.

I think it is just stupid economics for a government to approach economic management from a strand of thinking regarding unions as enemies.

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.

Neither the common law nor the Fourteenth Amendment confers the absolute right to strike.

Unions may also legitimately resort to strikes where this is the only available means to the justice owed to workers

I will use the power of the government of the United States within my control to prevent the labor unions ... from destroying the open shop.

It is not right for public officials to bring scabs and gunmen into any state. I am directly opposed to it myself, but if it is a question of strike or you go into slavery, then I say strike until the last one of us drop into our graves.

The number of men out on strike exceeds that of any other industrial contest in the history of our country.

The history of all countries shows that, by its own efforts, the working class can develop only a trade-union consciousness—that is, the realization of the need of getting together in unions in order to fight employers and to demand from the government the passing of laws necessary for the workers.

I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails under which laborers can strike when they want to...I like the system which lets a man quit when he wants to and wish it might prevail everywhere.

Unquestionably unions and their leaders are not always wise and fair any more than any other human beings. 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.

Labor unions have already inflicted an evil on this country which they could never entirely repair.

The right to organize is a fundamental right for American workers.

I look back at history, and some of the worst governments we've ever had, you know one of the first things they ever did? They went after the trade unions.

Here's the dilemma of the modern age: There used to be actions that workers could take, in the form of a strike. But now, that's being pre-empted by lockouts. They don't even have that leverage to protect their jobs.

Whether one has a favorable or unfavorable opinion of unions, their demise is also the demise of countervailing power. A system in which there is no countervailing power is a tyranny in which power is unconstrained and unaccountable.

I wouldn't have supported invoking Taft-Hartley to help George Bush end a strike.

I am a huge believer in organized labor. Period. Full stop.

I support collective bargaining everywhere.