Adam Smith Quotes

With the laborers of England generally, does not the moral coercion of want subject their will as despotically to that of their employer, as the physical constraint does the soldier, the seaman, or the slave?

My heart lies with the workers.

Before there were unions, there was no middle class.

We have tried voluntary codes and we have tried free markets, but they have not worked, so we need to try something else. Legislation is not a panacea for all the inequalities in the workplace, but it will go a long way towards stopping them. Effective employment legislation is needed

Juridically they are equal; but economically the worker is the serf of the capitalist … The worker always has the right to leave his employer, but has he the means to do so? No, he does it in order to sell himself to another employer. He is driven to it by the same hunger which forces him to sell himself to the first employer.

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

We need unions to make sure that working people have a legitimate and consistent voice.

Each reform, therefore, improving the economical and political situation of the workers proves to be an arm that increases the energy with which the proletarian struggle of classes is fought.

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.

Legislation has been and is still directed towards the protection of wealth, rather than towards the far more important interests of labor on which everything of value to mankind depends.

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 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.

Only with the tools of production in their own hands could the workers ever hope to control their own lives and receive the fruits of their labor.

It means that the men who hold the means of life control our lives, and, because we workingmen have tried to get some measure of justice, some measure of betterment, they deny the right of the human being to associate with his fellow.

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.

A mutual arrangement, I repeat, is the only satisfactory medium whereby the present system can be carried on with any degree of satisfaction, and in such an arrangement the employers have more to gain than the workers.

I had watched for many years and seen how a few rich families held much of Argentina's wealth and power in their hands. So Peron and the government brought in an eight hour working day, sickness pay and fair wages to give poor workers a fair go .

The so-called 'Employee Free Choice Act' envisions a world where workers would be denied privacy and forced to vote in an atmosphere of intimidation.

When the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century brought a rapid increase in wealth, the demand of workers for a fair share of the wealth they were creating was conceded only after riots and strikes.

The labor movement means just this: it is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.

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

There can be no distress, there can be no hard times, when labor is well paid. The man who raises his hand against the progress of the workingman raises his hand against prosperity.

The union in many cases is reduced to the level of a facilitator, an agent or a "party" in negotiations. As such, how can it be seen by its members to be an organized and dedicated instrument relentlessly pursuing their aspirations and resolutely protecting their wages, conditions and standards?

It is gratifying that societies of this kind [labor unions], composed either of workers alone or of workers and employers together, are being formed everywhere, and it is truly to be desired that they grow in number and in active vigor.

The profit-grinding system is maintained by competition, or veiled war, not only between the conflicting classes, but also within the classes themselves: there is always war among the workers for bare subsistence, and among their masters, the employers and middle-men, for the share of the profit wrung out of the workers; lastly, there is competition always, and sometimes open war, among the nations of the civilised world for their share of the world-market.