Samuel Gompers Quotes

Union membership should not be a condition for employment, and workers should have the freedom to exercise their right to determine how their hard-earned money is spent.

Every individual should have both the right to join a union and the right to not join a union should they so choose. It's about basic human freedom.

There may be here and there a worker who for certain reasons unexplainable to us does not join a union of labor. That is his right. It is his legal right, no matter how morally wrong he may be.

I believe if an individual wants to join organized labor and work under a union contract, they should have the legal right to do so. At the same token, a person who does not want to work under organized labor and wants to work should have the ability to do so without the threat of having to join and having to pay dues to organized labor.

I respect unions, I think they have an important role to pay and I listen to them, we meet with them, and they raise valid points on a lot of issues like worker safety and so forth, but I also respect the right of individual workers to decide whether they want to pay that fee and whether they want to join a union.

I sometimes think that unions don't understand that we live in a free society, and people have the right to not select union representation if they don't want it.

Any reasonable economist will tell you that it's nearly impossible to isolate the impact of right-to-work laws on a state's job growth. A multitude of other factors intervene. However, one thing the numbers can show is that right-to-work laws have a negative effect on the wages of workers in that state.

Any union that can't accept workers choosing their own representatives through universal franchise is finished.

The reality is that no one can be forced to join a union against their will, and a union cannot take action against those who decide not to join their union.

The individual's freedom to withhold personal service is basic to the constitutional concept of liberty. Without this freedom, working people would be at the total mercy of their employers, unable either to bargain effectively or to extricate themselves from an intolerable situation. Such a situation would make a mockery out of the fundamental right to pursue life, liberty and happiness....

Now workers should have the right to join unions. But unions should not be forced upon workers. And unions should not have the power to take money our of their members' paychecks to buy the support of politicians that are favored by the union bosses.

Right to work doesn't eliminate unions. It makes them more responsible and accountable to their members on the front lines.

In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining…. We demand this fraud be stopped.

It should be the right of the individual to decide whether he wants to belong to a union.

There's a feeling that strength is determined by the size of a union. That clearly is nonsense.

The decision to join or not join a service union, political party or other organization should be left up to the individual. No such organization has the right to take money out of the pockets of state workers without their proper consent.

The inequality of bargaining power between employees who do not possess full freedom of association or actual liberty of contract, and employers who are organized in the corporate or other forms of ownership association substantially burdens and affects the flow of commerce, and tends to aggravate recurrent business depressions, by depressing wage rates and the purchasing power of wage earners.

We all know from a study of history the progress of the working people from the stage of barbarism to that of slavery, serfdom and later individual freedom... .

Republicans are always much more supportive of unions in Poland than they are of unions in the United States.

When those who do the work own the machines, when those who toil control the invention, then, and not till then, can the world be civilized or free, When these forces shall do the bidding of the individual, when they become the property of the mechanic instead of the monopoly, when they belong to labor instead of what is called capital, when these great powers are as free to the individual laborer as the air and light are now free to all, then, and not until then, the individual will be restored and all forms of slavery will disappear

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

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

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 essential that the worker in industry should have the status of an individual and not a mere cog in a soulless machine.

We do not want to place more power in the hands of government to investigate and regulate the lives, the conduct and the freedom of America's workers.