Jeff Van Drew Quotes

It's time we had a president who stood up for American workers first.

It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label.

I will support legislation that benefits the American worker and prevents the outsourcing of American jobs.

We're going to be very strong with employers in all of our aspects, because I think there's been too much of this idea let's try and get along here, and we've eroded some of our standards.

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

I'm for making sure Americans get jobs before other people do, and I'm not going to let jobs get outsourced overseas, like Romney let happen.

Unions go hand-in-hand with a strong middle class.

We must defend the rights of working people to bargain collectively for fair wages and safe working conditions.

Barack Obama is betting on the American worker.

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

We used to have food picked and used to have houses built and we used to have chicken properly processed and it was Americans that did it. If we are going to continue to utilize those goods, then what's going to have to happen is that the employers are going to have to elevate the wages in order to attract American workers to do those jobs.

This is just the beginning of a new era for America's workers.

My whole purpose really is to try to help working families to find better jobs and get better benefits and look out for the little guy.

I reject the idea that any job is too hard or too dirty for American workers to do. American workers just expect and demand to be paid a decent wage.

Should any party try and eliminate social security, … and labor laws, you would not hear from that party much again.

Labor: a man coins himself into his labor,—turns his day, his strength, his thought, his affection into some product which remains as the visible sign of his power; and to protect that, to secure that to him, to secure his past self to his future self, is the object of all government. There is no interest in any country so imperative as that of labor; it covers all, and constitutions and governments exist for that,—to protect and insure it to the laborer.

We must ensure American workers get the long-overdue raise they deserve.

Food service workers, home care workers, farm workers, and other low-wage workers log long hours. They come home tired after providing services and producing goods that make our country stronger. They deserve fair treatment from their employers, and they deserve a voice in collective bargaining.

The American economy is driven and maintained by the exceptionalism of the women and men who make up our workforce; we must do everything we can to protect them.

From his first days in the Oval Office, President Trump has prioritized the American worker.

Unions have been under attack for quite some time, and I think a lot of the jobs that we need to create in this country need to be union jobs. People want to be able to get a job that they can rely on to feed their family and pay their bills.

If you are trying to favor the unions by having more rigid labor market and keeping wages very high, you could be blocking people from getting new jobs.

The one thing that everyone knows about America is people will say, I know my rights. One of those rights is the right to organize. When workers do get together and organize and drive up their wages, they are much, much better off. I think this is one integral part of food policy. We can't talk about increasing the price of food without figuring out how working Americans are going to pay for that.

I do feel we can create more jobs and opportunities for Jersey City residents, but in the spirit of free enterprise, I do not think it is right to force companies to hire a fixed percentage of local residents.

Labor Day 2013 is special. This year marks the centennial of the U.S. Department of Labor - 100 years of working for America's workers.