Trade Union Quotes

I am sure future historians will say the biggest and most astonishing change in politics has been the embracing of all the tenets of Thatcherism by the party of Keir Hardie: trade union legislation, Europe, the replacement of Trident, 10 per cent tax for people who have made millions from their companies.

No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union official. There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesn't actually fall down.

The trade union, which originated under the European system, destroys liberty.

Everyone should have the right to join a strong union that will always have your back.

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 internationalization of capital is making it more difficult for trade union organizations safeguard workers’ interest. It is limiting the ability of the Government … to accomplish the national objectives defined by the democratic process.

By outlawing Solidarity, a free trade organization to which an overwhelming majority of Polish workers and farmers belong, they have made it clear that they never had any intention of restoring one of the most elemental human rights the right to belong to a free trade union.

Speaking of myself, I was made to realize long ago that the old trade union was utterly incompetent to deal successfully with the exploiting corporations in this struggle. I was made to see that in craft unionism the capitalist class have it within their power to keep the workers divided, to use one part of them to conquer and crush another part of them. Indeed, I was made to see that the old form of unionism separates the workers and keeps them helpless at the mercy of their masters.

Corbyn is about 1970s Bennite control.

Where I come from, from a very different point of view, it's a Labour heartland, it's a trade union heartland, and I'll have a very personal campaign against me there.

The social and moral issues are all on the side of free trade. And it is you, and people like you, who introduce protection who are the ones who are violating fundamental moral and social issues. Tell me, what trade union represents the workers who are displaced because high tariffs reduce exports from this country, because high tariffs make steel and other goods more expensive, and as a result, those industries that use steel have to charge higher prices, they have fewer employees, the export industries that would grow up to balance the imports, tell me what union represents them? What moral and ethical view do you have about their interests?

Having spent a number of my younger years with trade-union parents attending NUT annual conferences, I feel comfortable with an agenda in my hand and a procedural format for debate.

There is no other bargaining but collective bargaining.

I have watched these politicians in our movement. I followed their methods and regardless of how they talk of their trade union loyalty, my experience has been that when they enter the political arena they begin by talking as politicians, and very soon thinking like politicians, to the desertion of every trade union activity they pledged themselves to become part of

You may see the emergence of a new political party from the body of the trade union movement which represents a very clear-cut socialist alternative policy and which gives expression to the views of the trade union movement in parliament.

I was the adoring son of a Welsh-Irish father, a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, a Catholic Knight of Columbus who was a blue-collar, trade union organizer and, not surprisingly, a fervid Nixon-hater.

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.

To the best of my knowledge, when I became national secretary and, indeed, Victorian secretary, the - my predecessors in the union had detected wrong activities, activities which aren't in the best traditions of the AWU or, indeed, trade unionism.

The methods by which a trade union can alone act are necessarily destructive; its organization is necessarily tyrannical.

Everyone has the right to fair labor practices. Every worker has the right to form and join a trade union; to participate in the activities and programs of a trade union; and to strike. Every employer has the right to form and join an employers' organization; and to participate in the activities and programs of an employers' organization. Every trade union and every employers' organization has the right to determine its own administration, programs and activities; to organize; and to form and join a federation. Every trade union, employers' organization and employer has the right to engage in collective bargaining.

Yes, I think it's really important to acknowledge that Dr. King, precisely at the moment of his assassination, was re-conceptualizing the civil rights movement and moving toward a sort of coalitional relationship with the trade union movement.

I spent 20 years working for the trade union movement before becoming a Labour MP. I'm proud to have done both jobs.

I come from a blue collar background.

Solidarity Forever

My preference is that employees pay their union dues, but what I also get is that I'd rather someone be in the union than not in the union.