Sharan Burrow Quotes
Workers in Myanmar must have an effective remedy when their rights are violated.
Burrow, Sharan. "Myanmar: Workers' Rights Must Be Protected." International Trade Union Confederation, 10 May 2015.
Ruffin is more widely known as the man who fired the first shot of the Civil War.
This quotation is interesting for two reasons. First it is a good example of the twisted logic of some of the Slavery apologists who claimed that the Negro slave was better off than the free wage earner. The second reason is that it illustrates the norms of the treatment of the working man before the Civil War. The union movement would change the situation for the free laborer over the next century and then holidays and worker rights became normalized in American society. See {641290} for another of his absurd arguments.
The Republican Party condemned polygamy and slavery in its party platform of 1856
Brown was the richest man in Rhode Island and made much of his money in the slave trade. This quotation shows that slavery was not completely a North verses South split. Northerners like Brown for whose family Brown University was named, was as virulent supporter of slavery as the most ardent Southerner.
This was written under the name of Ragnar Redbeard. There are a few scholars who believe that it was written by Jack London, but most credit Desmond.
This is not a common quotation from Thoreau. The great man for whom the establishment had so much respect had a very anti-capitalist streak. His view is that the employer will generally never pay his laborers a fair wage. Instead he will pay the laborer the lowest rate for which he can obtain the laborers services. If the laborer generates added value for his wage, the employer is in a zero sum game with the laborer. If part of the added value—the profit is paid to the laborer, the employer does not have it for himself (or his stockholders). In most cases, the laborer is forced to work for his and his family’s subsistence. This theory argues that they only way the laborer will get a fair wage is if there is a labor shortage (assuming no government laws or union pressure is in the picture. Many capitalists argue that a “fair” wage is what a free man is willing to work for and a free employer is willing to pay. So economics is like politics in general with respect to fairness—there is no universally accepted definition of what is fair.
This marvelous quotation gives us a picture of the essence of the conflict in conception of freedom between Southern whites and negroes. There was no way to change the large majority of whites’ opinions and it is easy to see why Jim Crow and Southern discrimination evolved as it did. The emancipated Blacks had insufficient power or resources and there was not enough effort or success at changing white attitudes and no where near enough law enforcement to impose the view on the majority of the Southern white population.
This moral statement from a New jersey Quaker abolitionist is not particularly noteworthy, However what makes this quote important is that Woolman traveled throughout the South preaching this as his main theme. At that time — before the American Revolution — he did so and was not attacked or intimidated; he was mostly ignored by the Southern authorities. At the time, the South was very confident of its ability to continue slavery. Years later, when the abolition movement grew larger and stronger, a Northern Quaker Preacher doing this not not escape with his life.
Sharan Leslie Burrow AC is the General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and a former President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) (2000–2010). She is the first woman to become General Secretary of the ITUC since its foundation in 2006, and was the second woman to become President of the ACTU.
