Labor Relations Quotes

Labor is one of the processes by which A acquires property for B.

Windows were the first thing we made ourselves. Other products, such as cement and plasterboard, came later. Some of the factories we actually built because of union blockades trying to stop us getting supplies.

If you have poor management that's not doing the right job, you end up with unions filling the void and... page after page of work rules and thicker and thicker contracts.

The so-called 'Employee Free Choice Act' envisions a world where workers would be denied privacy and forced to vote in an atmosphere of intimidation.

Give me a highly successful unionized industry.

Labor unions are the worst thing that ever struck the earth because they take away a man's independence.

There are two forces in this and in every other nation of the world today. One force is the taker and the other force is the maker.

I will never recognize the union, never, never!

Our slaves are happy and contented. They bear the kindest relation that labor can sustain to capital.

In the 19th century, the chains [of slavery] were metal. Today, the chains are debt—the worker has to repay his transportation, his tools, his food.

In the last years no political strike has taken place in Italy… This is a country where the unions have signed a wage truce…this is a surprising and absurd feature of the present economic situation…. On the other side, a pack of political and economic speculators are taking advantage of the situation.

… the struggle of men to outvie one another in production is beneficial to the community; their struggle over the division of the joint produce is not. The stronger side will dictate its own terms; and as a matter of fact, in the early days of competition, the capitalists used all their power to oppress the laborers, and drove down wages to starvation point. This kind of competition has to be checked; there is no historical instance of its having lasted long without being modified either by combination or legislation, or both. In England both remedies are in operation, the former through Trades Unions, the latter through factory legislation.

Employers and employees alike have learned that in union there is strength.

Many people do not realize that where unions have bargaining rights employers cannot raise wages or improve benefit plans any more than they can reduce them without of the consent of the union.

The seeming antagonism between capital and labor is the result of deceptive appearance.

We must have modern conditions to meet modern machinery. As labor-saving devices are installed and used for production we must necessarily shorten the number of hours per day, and we are now at the state where we will necessarily have to come to a five day week because, gentlemen, you cannot have prosperity unless you have employment.

Do not make the mistake...of thinking that a worker is a slave and that he holds his job by his employer's permission. He does not hold it by permission - but by contract, that is, by a voluntary mutual agreement. A worker can quit his job; a slave cannot.

Now, I learned soon enough, that among the three, two don't trust the third one - the third one is the government. Both industry and unions feel the government is a talking organization and a spending organization.

to supplement the local government in protecting his property when he enters into a contest with his employees.

There can be no harmony between organized capitalists and organized labor. Our present wage system is slavery in its worst form.

Germany has an established and well-furnished Catholicism, often with employed Catholics who handle the church like a labor union. For them, the church is simply the employer.

The world of employer and employee, like that of master and slave, debases both.

He who before was the money owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labor-power follows as his laborer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other hesitant, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but a hiding.

In democratic countries as well as elsewhere most of the branches of productive industry are carried on at a small cost by men little removed by their wealth or education above the level of those whom they employ.

Workers work hard enough to not be fired, and owners pay just enough so that workers won't quit.