Jim Ratcliffe Quotes

Regardless of the degree of class consciousness of their members, the trade unions are, by their very nature, driven on to the revolutionary goal.

The labor movement was a reaction to capitalism.

Before there were unions, there was no middle class.

You can't co-opt labor issues if you are in the working class.

I came from a working-class family. My dad was in a union. I never forgot what it was like to be a private.

I'm from a working-class background, and I've experienced that worry of not having a job next week because the unions are going on strike. I know that because I don't come from a wealthy background.

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.

The more workers you have in your organization, the better you are implanted in the working class, the more likely you are to come up with the concrete problems of the class.

The late development of mass industrial organization in the United States has both stimulated and retarded the political development of the American working class.

I've had several working-man songs that I like.

I'm from a working-class background, and I've experienced that worry of not having a job next week because the unions are going on strike.

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

The working class owes all honor and respect to the first men who planted the standard of labor solidarity on the hostile frontier of unorganized industry.

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

The history of all countries shows that, by its own efforts, the working class can develop only a trade-union consciousness—that is, the realization of the need of getting together in unions in order to fight employers and to demand from the government the passing of laws necessary for the workers.

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

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

My heart lies with the workers.

Workers, the most absolutely necessary part of the whole social structure, without whose services none can either eat, or clothe, or shelter himself, are just the ones who get the least to eat, to wear, and to be housed withal — to say nothing of their share of the other social benefits which the rest of us are supposed to furnish, such as education and artistic gratification.

Unquestionably unions and their leaders are not always wise and fair any more than any other human beings. There are only two ways to bring about protection of the workers, however, legislation and unionization. So far the majority of the people in this country seem to favor unions as a more democratic and elastic method, though certain things must be dealt with by legislation.

It does seem to me that the laboring classes were possessed of the Devil. I believe in the free application of rifle balls, grape and canister to mobs.

Unions have long championed measures to reduce social and economic inequality, and efforts to weaken the labor movement at both the state and federal level have successfully stalled any progress.

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.

I stand with the working-class citizens.

I will stand with unions wholeheartedly, and that's the problem - the Democratic Party wants to say that, but their actions do not mirror that.