Bill Shorten Quotes

Don't organize for any other purpose than mutual benefit to the employer and the employee.

Washington State has a strong tradition of a positive relationship - positive working relationship between labor and management, whether in the private sector or the public sector. It needs to continue to be that way.

No better strike leader than John N. Mitchell has ever emerged in any time of industrial strife.

There are established processes of consultation between the Government, the parastatals and the trade unions, which have worked in the past. And I don't see any particular reason why they shouldn't work.

Employers and employees alike have learned that in union there is strength.

It has been said, and only half in jest, that a tough, professionally led union is a great force for improving management performance. It forces the manager to think about what he is doing and to be able to explain his actions and behavior.

If there is to be peace in our industrial life let the employer recognize his obligation to his employees - at least to the degree set forth in existing statutes.

My own idea is that if the men hold any meetings or attempt to form any organization, we should be prepared to be fully informed of all that goes on and unhesitatingly discharge any men connected with this movement. In this way, our peace will be secure for a long time, and it will be easily done if taken at the start.

Back in early 1983, my dad was tasked with keeping unions from organizing in his company's distribution centers. His work pulled him away from home for months on end.

Union busting has become an art form.

Industrial relations are like sexual relations. It's better between two consenting parties.

Capital and labor are just as harmonious as roast beef and a hungry stomach.

If there is to be peace in our industrial life, let the employer recognize his obligation to his employees

The attitude of refusal to participate in collective bargaining with representatives of the employees' own choosing is the negation of this bridge to better relationship.

Good union leaders make excellent public leaders in the legislative and executive branches.

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.

Union busting has become a major industry with more than a thousand consulting firms teaching companies how to prevent workers from organizing and how to get rid of existing unions.

As long as there are big corporations, there will be big unions. The economic power of big business will be matched by the economic power of the big unions.

Many people do not realize that where unions have bargaining rights employers cannot raise wages or improve benefit plans any more than they can reduce them without of the consent of the union.

Private unions, such as the UAW, is a choice between employees and employers. If that is what they want, then who am I to say you can't have it?

Can a conservative work safely and soundly in a union environment - in a shop filled with union workers, activists, voters and life-long supporters of the Democrat Party? You betcha.

The task is before us. We have a labor movement that is completely discouraged and demoralized. We have an organized labor movement that is unable on any front to put up an effective struggle against the drive of destruction organized by the masters….the labor unions of America are being broken up because there is not sufficient unified understanding, because there is not sufficient leadership to save them.

Labor Unions are revolutionary and anarchistic and a menace to the entire social and industrial system of the United States.

Something may be done under Federal authority to prevent the disturbances which so often arise from disputes between employers and the employed.

I will use the power of the government of the United States within my control to prevent the labor unions ... from destroying the open shop.