Kevin O'Leary Quotes

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

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.

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?

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

It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.

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

Instead of focusing on attacking unions and the labor movement, we need to find ways to strengthen and empower workers so we can put more money in the pockets of middle class families.

Unions are the result of profit seekers. Unions are the way the average guy gets even with evil corporateers. The unions are godsends. The unions have a special status, because they represent the rising up of the average man against the evil corporateers and profiteers.

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.

I believe in trade unionism, and I believe in democracy, in democratic trade unionism.

I'm a lifelong believer in trade unionism.

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

Labor organizations are like other organizations, like organizations of capitalists; sometimes they act very well and sometimes they act badly. We should consistently favor them when they act well, and as fearlessly oppose them when they act badly.

There's a direct relationship between the bread box and the ballot box, and what the union fights for and wins at the bargaining table can be taken away in the legislative halls.

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

I am always on the side of labor when there is any compromise to be made.

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.

We are here to confederate the workers of this country into a working class movement that shall have for its purpose the emancipation of the working class from the slave bondage of capitalism. There is no organization, or there seems to be no labor organization, that has for its purpose the same object as that for which you are called together today. The aims and objects of this organization should be to put the working class in possession of the economic power, the means of life, in control of the machinery of production and distribution, without regard to capitalist masters.

When labor is strong, America is strong.

Fellow workers, this is the Continental Congress of the working class. The aims and objects of this organization shall be to put the working class in possession of economic power.

Labor is not fighting for a larger slice of the national pie. Labor is fighting for a larger pie.

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

And if you are going to truly stand with workers, it also means embracing solidarity, not attempting through lame talking points to pit union workers against non-union workers.

My parents were both union members, and I grew up hearing how important it was to empower workers and have fair labor practices.