Industrial Action Quotes

There are three bodies no sensible man directly challenges: the Roman Catholic Church, the Brigade of Guards and the National Union of Mineworkers.

The life of the village became more and more affected by strikes and lock-outs.

The most fervid demand, however, of all the workers on strike was for a shorter day … 10½ hours instead or 13 hours as formerly, or even 14 and 16 reckoning the time of cleaning machinery.

A labor strike will tear away a lot of the good things going for this league.

A strike cannot be tolerated under any circumstances for it would be a stab at our armed might.

The General Strike has taught the working class more in four days than years of talking could have done.

No better strike leader than John N. Mitchell has ever emerged in any time of industrial strife.

There is nothing a worker resents more than to see some man taking his job. A factory can be closed down, its chimneys smokeless, waiting for the worker to come back to his job, and all will be peaceful. But the moment workers are imported, and the striker sees his own place usurped, there is bound to be trouble.

No society can tolerate strikes that endanger the general welfare, such as a strike that shuts down an entire industry. Nor can any government tolerate a strike aimed at its authority. But the “right to strike” is absolutely necessary to the cohesion, if not indeed to the survival, of the union; without it it cannot discharge its function.

No strike has ever been lost.

There are three groups that no British Prime Minister should provoke: The Vatican, the Treasury and the miners.

You can’t mine coal with bayonets!

The dissolution of the trade unions was in the air then.

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

If the workers took a notion they could stop all speeding trains; every ship upon the ocean they can tie with mighty chains.

The setting of 'Billy Elliot' is the British miners' strike of 1984-85, about which the average American playgoer knows absolutely nothing.

All too often miners, and indeed other trade unionists, underestimate the economic strength they have.

For the first time we are facing the prospect of seeing legislation introduced which denies the right of trade unionists to come to the assistance of other unionists and denies the right of trade unionists to seek the support of others in their disputes. There is only one response. Faced with this legislation we should say we will defy the law. It is the only action we can take and it is the only response this movement can give. If there is an attempt to use this legislation then you defy it not as an individual union but as a movement.

Strike is always a form of direct action. With the strike, too, you are not asking government to make things easier for you by passing legislation, you are taking a direct action against the employer.

If the workers of the world want to win, all they have to do is recognize their own solidarity. They have nothing to do but fold their arms and the world will stop.

Am I allowed to suggest that we owe much to these stubborn and sectarian people, those indefatigable strikers who take over our factories and bring disorder to our streets, these obstinate creatures who ceaselessly fought for reforms while fantasizing of the Revolution, these Marxists who, marching against the current of History, disturbed the complacent sleep of capitalism? … Communism is dead. Let us rejoice.

If you're going to vote on a television contract, there is a certain rationality to saying that the same structures that are applied to Health Plan participation should be placed on the right to vote on a strike.

There are plenty of people who don't want change - the Labour Party, some of their militant trade union friends like Unite busy causing strikes at the very beginning of a fragile recovery.

In a situation like that obtaining in Germany, I can only conceive a political general strike as a unique event in which the entire proletariat throughout the nation engages with all its might, as a life-and-death struggle, one in which our adversary is beaten down or else all our organizations, all our strength shattered or at least paralysed for years to come

If the weapon of the general strike is to be utilized, then the organization must be so built up that this weapon will stand ready for instant use. For the certainty of success in a general strike lies in its suddenness. Ever more numerous and greater will become the great strikes and outbreaks of this character which shake the social life of the nation to its foundation …