Jean-Pierre Raffarin Quotes

I think the business community is smart enough to realise that just having a trade union is not enough. They are smart enough to know they need to be part of a union that has political and financial power.

I'm a lifelong believer in trade unionism.

What labor is demanding all over the world today is not a few material things like more dollars and fewer hours of work, but the right to a voice in the conduct of industry.

There is no other bargaining but collective bargaining.

Workers are not going to be fobbed off with a few shares...or by a carbon copy of the German system of co-determination.

The trade union movement represents the organized economic power of the workers... It is in reality the most potent and the most direct social insurance the workers can establish.

There's not democracy in the workplace. I mean, through most of our daily lives, the idea of democracy is fairly nonexistent. And I think things work better when the people who have to work with whatever it is we're working with have a say in how it's working.

What until then seemed impossible to achieve has become a fact of life. We have won the right to association in trade unions independent from the authorities, founded and shaped by the working people themselves.

The clash between capital and labour, between those seeking to maximise profit and those with only their toil to sell, was the driving force for the creation of the trade unions in the 19th century.

As I, as a worker, came to know them, the aims of German trade unions were political, and there were a number of various trade unions with varied political views.

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

We are just interested in dealing with the people we're paying every day. We know federal law allows them to vote in a union at anytime, but we think we can resist that by talking to our own people and giving them enough upside.

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.

Our recent 5-year labour agreements, in Canada as well as the United States, are based upon experience, logic and principle rather than on pressure, propaganda and force.

I think there's not much patience for organized labour, period, public or private sector.

When the businessmen of the country were demanding the right to organize themselves adequately to promote their legitimate interests; when the farmers were demanding legislation which would give them opportunities and incentives to organize themselves for a common advance, it was natural that the workers should seek and obtain a statutory declaration of their constitutional right to organize themselves for collective bargaining.

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

The union in many cases is reduced to the level of a facilitator, an agent or a "party" in negotiations. As such, how can it be seen by its members to be an organized and dedicated instrument relentlessly pursuing their aspirations and resolutely protecting their wages, conditions and standards?

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

Labour reforms are not anti-worker.

The unions do a really good job in standing up for workers' rights and business does a very good job advocating for opportunities in this state. I don't believe the two have to operate independently.

Trade unions infringe upon the property rights of company owners.

A man who tries to make the workmen believe that their employers are their natural enemies is indeed the worst enemy of workmen. For the employees of yesterday are the employers of today, and the employees of today can and will partly be the employers of tomorrow.

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.

Strong, responsible unions are essential to industrial fair play. Without them the labor bargain is wholly one-sided. The parties to the labor contract must be nearly equal in strength if justice is to be worked out, and this means that the workers must be organized and that their organizations must be recognized by employers as a condition precedent to industrial peace.