John L. Lewis Quotes

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.

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?

Let him who will, be he economic tyrant or sordid mercenary, pit his strength against this mighty upsurge of human sentiment now being crystallized in the hearts of thirty million workers who clamor for the establishment of industrial democracy and for participation in its tangible fruits. He is a madman of a fool who believes that this river of human sentiment can be damned.

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

It's impossible to write the history of freedom in this country without telling how trade unions have contributed to it.

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

And I think we understand we cannot make social change for all workers until we have enough strength, membership strength, and at the same time having membership strength and only making change for a limited group of workers is not what our country really needs for people that work.

The Communists were interested in getting into key positions as union officers, statisticians, economists, etc., in order to utilize the apparatus of the unions to promote the cause of revolution.

Starting that union was something I believed in very strongly.

Unions are about the collective leverage, the power of numbers versus the power of capital.

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

Let the workers organize. Let the toilers assemble. Let their crystallized voice proclaim their injustices and demand their privileges. Let all thoughtful citizens sustain them, for the future of Labor is the future of America.

I'm a big believer in the value of labor unions and with what collective effort gets people.

What shall the workers do? Sit idly by and see the vast resources of nature and the human mind be utilized and monopolized for the benefit of the comparative few? No. The laborers must learn to think and act, and soon, too, that only by the power of organization, and common concert of action, can either their manhood be maintained, their rights to life (work to sustain it) be recognized, and liberty and rights secured.

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

The labor movement is our brother's keeper! The labor movement is our sister's keeper!

Before there were unions, there was no middle class.

People think that we're engaged with identity politics. The truth is that we're doing what the labor movement has always done - organizing people who are at the bottom.

I think we will see a united labor movement again. When workers unite they're stronger. The same goes for unions.

The General Strike has taught the working class more in four days than years of talking could have done.

It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins.

And the spirit of revolution will not die while the hearts of these workers continue to beat.

This led me to understand that trade unionism, the instrument of working-class liberation and of social change could, and indeed should, be also an instrument of industrial progress.

And the success of the union movement, historically, has always been to benefit all working men and women - not just people who belong to the union.

There is nothing stronger than the American labor movement. United, we cannot and we will not be turned aside. We'll work for it, sisters and brothers. We'll stand for it. Together. Each of us. To bring out the best in America. To bring out the best in ourselves, and each other.