Richard Rorty Quotes

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.

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.

If we are going to reverse the race to the bottom, workers must have the right to engage in collective bargaining.

The organized workers of America, free in their industrial life, conscious partners in production, secure in their homes and enjoying a decent standard of living, will prove the finest bulwark against the intrusion of alien doctrines of government.

I will only stop defending the rights of workers when I die.

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

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

With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men.

Workers organized and fought for worker rights and food safety, Social Security and Medicare - they fought to change government. And they won.

Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying.

Wage theft, worker rights and workplace discrimination should not be swept under the rug. The United States cannot have a functional economy where all the gains go to the corporate class while all the pain goes to regular workers.

In Finland, where 80 percent of workers belong to unions, all employees enjoy at least 30 days paid vacation, and the gap between the rich and poor is far more equitable than in the United States.

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

I think you'll see if you look at 'Up', we've focused a lot on labor (and the forces trying to keep labor down) and have featured everything from Wal Mart workers, to on-the-ground organizers, to union presidents to restaurant workers sitting at the table sharing their experience and expertise.

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?

I'm a lifelong believer in trade unionism.

As we grow richer, the ties that used to bind workers together in a risk-pooling welfare state (first locally, later nationally) have loosened.

The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for—not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country.

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

The Church fully supports the right of workers to form unions or other associations to secure their rights to fair wages and working conditions.

Trade unionism means the enslavement of the workers by the bourgeoisie.

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.

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.

There is nothing to arbitrate. Workers have nothing to do with the amount of wages they shall receive. This is solely the business of the company.

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.