Barney Frank Quotes

The labor union is a great scheme to interrupt work. It speeds up loafing

My job is to represent working people.

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

A basic assumption shapes most Americans’ mindset about labor: the belief that the death of unions isn’t my problem because I’m not in a union. That assumption is wrong. Even if you aren’t a member, your pay is influenced by the strength or weakness of organized labor. The presence of unions sets off a wage race to the top. Their absence sets off a race to the bottom.

We're the party that's fought for increased wages, fought for the union movement, fought to make sure that collective bargaining is not eviscerated, it's strengthened. And when we communicate those messages, we succeed.

Dr. King's last campaign was a labor struggle. Many people are aware that King was assassinated in Memphis in the spring of 1968. Less well-known is what drew him there: solidarity with city sanitation workers, who, without the benefit of union representation, were rising up to protest humiliating pay and deplorable working conditions.

I remember being amazed that actors had a union. I thought only coal miners had unions, or guys that worked in automobile plants. That's an indication of how naive I was.

Employers will work you longer for less money and under questionable safety conditions because it is their duty to prioritize the bottom line. As individuals, we cannot complain. That's why we need a union to speak for us, certainly when our safety, our health, and our very lives are at stake!

I'll argue with the owners all day long when they do not allow the players to get the best.

Many people feel that unions aren't militant enough for them and don't do anything.

I've written that there are some workplaces where the best thing you could have for achieving the best terms and conditions of employment will be a labor union. They play an important role.

My dad was in a union.

Maintaining an employer model of healthcare means handing bosses another weapon they can use against their workers. One more way they can drain union strike funds. One more way that the power dynamic is asymmetric.

In my experience, union leaders are respected by their members.

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.

Our union helps ensure that we earn fair pay and benefits.

This is a pattern-bargaining industry, like railroads. You need to pay market to get a contract at all, and without contracts, you have a poor relationship with workers.

I can not regulate Daryl Turner. He's a union official.

We never want to see anyone go in front of the camera or behind the mic without union protection.

The NLRB provides important protections to American workers.

Political activity by unions is not wrong. It's their First Amendment right.

Unions have been under attack for quite some time, and I think a lot of the jobs that we need to create in this country need to be union jobs. People want to be able to get a job that they can rely on to feed their family and pay their bills.

T-Mobile U.S.A. is one company that uses fear and intimidation to scare workers away from union representation.

Collective bargaining, and the fundamental human right, freedom of association, is seen as an anathema to American business, and people just - it doesn't seem to register that there's no universal social safety net that people can touch.

The workers who get hurt by corner-cutting often do not realize they are being wronged. Even when they do, they do not have the support and resources to fight back. Without a union to stand behind them, these workers are forced to stay in bad jobs, or face no job at all.