Union Activism Quotes

The labor movement has a great role to play in our country today.

We are a beginning democracy. If there were not strikes, this would not be a democracy.

Labor #‎ Unions are the leading force for #‎ democratization and #‎ progress .

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

Unions may also legitimately resort to strikes where this is the only available means to the justice owed to workers

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 I were a factory employee, a workman on the railroads or a wage-earner of any sort, I would undoubtedly join the union of my trade. If I disapproved of its policy, I would join in order to fight that policy; if the union leaders were dishonest, I would join in order to put them out. I believe in the union and I believe that all men who are benefited by the union are morally bound to help to the extent of their power in the common interests advanced by the union.

I remember a time when you were protesting on the street together with your professors, with your union, with your school organizations. Everybody was in the streets. Now, everybody is kept alone in his box, in this fragile condition, afraid of losing tenure.

Labor has been severely undermined, but that's happened before. In the 1920s, the labor movement was virtually crushed, in large part by Wilson's Red Scare, but it dramatically revived in the 1930s. It spearheaded the social-democratic New-Deal style changes which were beneficial to the country - not sufficient, but beneficial. That could happen again.

It was a way to try and shut down what the unions were negotiating for, like better hours and pay. [Dalton] Trumbo and his friends joined the Communists mostly for these reasons.

I have managed to infuriate the bank bosses; acquire a fatwa from the revolutionary guards of the trades union movement; frighten the 'Daily Telegraph' with a progressive graduate payment; and upset very rich people who are trying to dodge British taxes. I must be doing something right.

There are plenty who think a union should not speak out, fight for or criticize the foreign policy of our government; that it should be a matter of our government, right or wrong, in matters of foreign policy. We have never adhered to that belief. And we shouldn’t.

Governor Scott Walker didn't know who he was messing with when he picked a fight with the hard-working union folks of Wisconsin. He must have forgotten that Wisconsin is the Badger State. And badgers are scrappy little creatures. We may look cute, warm and fuzzy, but we have a fighting spirit.

The weapon of political action. That is going to be the main fighting weapon of all labor, international as well as national, if we are going to do those things that we are in business to do as a labor union

In 1972, I signed a union card for SEIU. And for the last 38 years, 14 as president, it's been my life. I've seen the most miraculous, spectacular things. But there's a time to learn, a time to lead and a time to leave.

We must have more union members in this country to fight the political and business forces that are undermining workers in this country. The AFL-CIO has chosen the opposite approach by planning to throw even more money at politicians.

My father was a coal hewer from Goldthorpe, a coal-mining village in South Yorkshire. He played for the Yorkshire second team as an opening fast bowler - to me he was a gorgeously heroic man. He helped form a union and closed down the Barnsley seam because it was seeping gas, and saved many, many lives.

Civil rights activists and union activists shared not just common values and objectives but also common enemies.

Samuel Gompers has spent his life trying to keep labor from working too hard and has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

The strike is the weapon of the industrial jungle.

We will stand by our friends and administer a stinging rebuke to men or parties who are either indifferent, negligent, or hostile, and, wherever opportunity affords, to secure the election of intelligent, honest, earnest trade unionists, with clear, unblemished, paid-up union cards in their possession.

It was their orderly mass picketing and parading that swung the strike into public notice. No strike of this size ever had such parades. No strike of this size had ever had such picket lines. They sweep out the three strike halls two by two. They stream down the streets gathering volume as they go until there are thousands of people in the parade. As they go they sing and shout. Flags go with them. Women and children, young girls, old ladies, grandmothers, all shouting and singing together. Who will ever forget them who has seen them out on the picket line early in the morning in dark groups that look like swarming bees? The lines of pickets, the constant file of people was an exciting thing. It became contagious. Picketing became Passaic's favorite game. Children played at picketing. They picketed their schools. They picketed their homes. Children came out after school to go on the picket line.

As the son of a union activist and a lifelong Democrat, I've always thought that privatizing our public schools is not the answer. We must strengthen public schools.

I think once you meet me, you realize I'm not necessarily some soft yoga guy. I've been on the picket line. I've been in the union halls. I'll drink a Miller Lite with you.

I'm pro Union.