Union Rights Quotes

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.

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.

“Right to Work” is wrong for Kentucky. It’s just another word for union busting...

It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.

It’s not about the budget; it’s about the power...So will the attack on unions succeed? I don’t know. But anyone who cares about retaining government of the people by the people should hope that it doesn’t.

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

At times you feel like you're the only voice speaking out to improve the working conditions of people, whether it's to be able to collectively bargain, to get adequate pay, to know that you can come home safe out of a coal mine.

The right to organize is a fundamental right for American workers.

Public employees should have the right to bargain for better wages and working conditions, just like all employees do.

The backwoodsmen are muttering about making Britain's draconian union laws - already among the toughest in Europe - harsher still. And parts of the media will continue to attack public service pensions, as if school meals staff, refuse collectors and healthcare workers have no right to a decent retirement.

Whenever the Republicans have an opportunity, they've tried to make New Mexico into a right-to-work state, and so I've been on the front lines fighting that for a long time.

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.

At the time there was a hospital strike in New York and the Catholic hospitals were part of a general consortium, and the head of the consortium had decided that they were finally going to replace some of the striking workers. And I hear [John] O'Connor yelling, 'Over my dead body will you replace any of those workers! They have a right to strike.' So I figured, 'This is interesting.'

I got my start in lefty journalism as a labor reporter at 'In These Times', and it's in my blood.

So let me be clear, Collective bargaining isn't a right, it is an expensive entitlement. Once and for all, we are giving the taxpayers a voice in this debate. We put the power back in the hands of the people.

There is nothing that says unions have a God-given right to be there. We have to work at it and make ourselves relevant to every section of the workforce.

I think someone in the union has the right to a private vote, and that's why I'm anti-card check. I grew up in a union family. My grandfather was a coal miner; he was in the union.

If there are rights or duties of people which are not guaranteed because they're part of a [de facto] union and not of a family, there will be the need of a legislative action to remove the disparity. Obviously, when talking about people I refer to everyone [including homosexuals].

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

While the men of the steel industry were going through blood and gas in defense of their rights and their homes and their families, elsewhere on the far-flung C.I.O. front the hosts of labor were advancing and intelligent and permanent progress was being made.

If you mean by capitalism the God-given right of a few big corporations to make all the decisions that will affect millions of workers and consumers and to exclude everyone else from discussing and examining those decisions, then the unions are threatening capitalism.

I support gay unions. I think the government should get out of the marriage business completely - leave marriages to the churches. And grant civil unions to gay couples, grant civil unions to a man and woman.

For years, leaders in Columbus have launched an ideological attack on the working men and women of Ohio and their ability to collectively bargain for good wages and safe workplace conditions. That's wrong, and it has to stop.

I don't want to be married. I'm very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership. The word 'marriage,' I think, puts a lot of people off. You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships.

People have made a public career out of fighting government. They slam the government and they try to destroy the bargaining rights of government employees. This is an era of unfounded anger toward government. It needs to be brought into check.