Robert Teeter Quotes

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

The real bottom line is, the national unions want their hands on the money.

The unions may continue to decline, but if they do, it'll be their fault.

Teacher unions are an interest group that acts in defense of their own interests, which means the union bosses' interests, not the members.

I'm a lifelong believer in trade unionism.

Organized labor, if they're doing a responsible job, is going to organize the pooling of small amounts of money to protect the interests of the people who are not rich.

It's an American worker's right to unionize for sure, but that being said, don't expect me not to point out when or if union leadership takes advantage of union members.

After contract negotiations and organizing, playing an active role in the political process is one of a union's most important functions. Gains won at the bargaining table or through sacrifice on the picketline can be wiped out by politicians on the state or federal level.

Labor unions must have conflict in order to justify their existence.

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.

My job is to represent working people.

The right to strike is one of the most important safeguards working people have in this country. It's a weapon of last resort that has served throughout history as a bargaining tool which allows unions to push for recognition of ordinary workers' rights to be paid fairly and treated with dignity.

Pension and health benefits are a cornerstone of union protection. When actors' work is split between two unions, that protection is weakened or, in the worst cases, eliminated. That's not acceptable, and it's one of many reasons merging SAG and AFTRA makes sense.

When you have powerful unions, you have a working class that is politicized.

The labor unions shall have a square deal, and the corporations shall have a square deal, and in addition, all private citizens shall have a square deal.

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.

Today in America, unions have a secure place in our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice. I have no use for those - regardless of their political party - who hold some vain and foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when organized labor was huddled, almost as a hapless mass. Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice.

We'll be competitive with organized labor, we're also competitive with regular, unorganized labor, working people who see their stakes and their future in the plans we're putting forward to move Massachusetts forward.

The labor movement was a reaction to capitalism.

After one operator referred to the union as ‘a set of outlaws’, I wanted to take him by the seat of the breeches and nape of the neck and chuck him out the window.

I believe in corporations. I believe in trade unions. Both have come to stay and are necessities in our present industrial system, But where, either one or the other, there develops corruption or mere brutal indifference to the rights of others … then the offender, whether union or corporation, must be fought.

Well, if the Teamsters and the truckers are against it, it must be a pretty good bill.

Labor unions are the worst thing that ever struck the earth. Financiers are behind the unions and their object is to kill competition so as to reduce the income of the workers and eventually bring on war. We will never recognize the United Auto Workers Union.

It was clear to many American working men and women that the Homestead Steel Strike of the early 1890s, when Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick broke the backs of the steel workers, that that was a watershed.

Unions, by and large, are democratic organizations with freely chosen leaders and policies determined by the membership. They concern themselves with individual dignity not only in their aims but in their method. We have no better example of what is worthy of emulation abroad than the workings of a good union.