Unionism Quotes:

Unionism, seldom if ever, uses such powers as it has to ensure better work; almost always it devotes a large part of that power to safeguard bad work.

- H. L. Mencken

topic: Quality, Use, Unionism

Centers of unionism are also the centers of unemployment.

- Hans F. Sennholz

topic: Unemployment, Unionism

Today in America, unions have a secure place in our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice. I have no use for those - regardless of their political party - who hold some vain and foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when organized labor was huddled, almost as a hapless mass. Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

topic: Dream, Party, Men, Labor Union, Working Man

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

- Abraham Lincoln

topic: Work, Independent, Civil War, Labor And Capital, Labor Day Wishes

Where trade unions are most firmly organized, there are the rights of the people most respected.

- Samuel Gompers

topic: Rights, Organization, People, Labor Union, Trade Unions

... it is the spirit of trade unionism that is most important, the service of fellowship, the feeling that the hurt of one is the concern of all and that the work of the individual benefits all.

- Rose Schneiderman

source: Rose Schneiderman, Lucy Goldthwaite (1967). “All for one”

topic: Hurt, Feelings, Important, Unionism

Every advance in this half-century-Social Security, civil rights, Medicare, aid to education, one after another-came with the support and leadership of American Labor.

- Jimmy Carter

topic: Rights, Support, Half, Organized Labor, Union Solidarity

I am an organizer, not a union leader. A good organizer has to work hard and long. There are no shortcuts. You just keep talking to people, working with them, sharing, exchanging and they come along.

- Cesar Chavez

topic: Leadership, Hard Work, Talking, Keep Talking, Organizer

We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.

- Cesar Chavez

source: Cesar Chavez, Richard Jay Jensen, John C. Hammerback (2002). “The Words of César Chávez”, p.17, Texas A&M University Press

topic: Strength, Struggle, Commitment, Strength And Weakness, Unionism

Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.

- Molly Ivins

topic: Heart, Giving, Boards, Labor Union, Organized Labor

The American Labor Movement has consistently demonstrated its devotion to the public interest. It is, and has been, good for all America.

- John F. Kennedy

topic: America, Presidential, Movement, Labor Movement, Labor Union

Trade unionism is not socialism. It is the capitalism of the proletariat.

- George Bernard Shaw

topic: Socialism, Economics, Proletariat, Unionism

All that serves labor serves the Nation. All ^ that harms labor is treason to America. No line can be drawn between these two. If any man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar. If any man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool. There is no America without labor, and to fleece the one is to rob the other.

- Abraham Lincoln

topic: Hate, Liars, Men, Labor Day Wishes, Labor Union

The essence of trade unionism is social uplift. The labor movement has been the haven for the dispossessed, the despised, the neglected, the downtrodden, the poor.

- A. Philip Randolph

topic: Uplifting, Essence, Movement, Social Movements, Labor Movement

Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and bruised itself. We have been enjoined by the courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, traduced by the press, frowned upon in public opinion, and deceived by politicians. 'But notwithstanding all this and all these, labor is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun.

- Eugene V. Debs

topic: Thug, Public Opinion, Realization, Labor Movement, Organized Labor

The history of the labor movement needs to be taught in every school in this land. America is a living testimonial to what free men and women, organized in free democratic trade unions can do to make a better life. We ought to be proud of it!

- Hubert H. Humphrey

topic: School, Men, Land, Labor Movement, Labor Union

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.

- Elizabeth Cady Stanton

topic: Inspiring, Women, Equality, Social Equality, Social Groups

The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.

- Cesar Chavez

topic: Peace, Firsts, Principles, Violence And Peace, Unionism

We know what unions have done for other people. We have seen it and we have studied and we have cherished the idea of unionism. We have seen the history and development of unions in this country and we tell the growers that we want nothing more, but that we want our own union and we are going to fight for it as long as it takes.

- Cesar Chavez

topic: Country, Fighting, Ideas, Unionism

We are convinced that non-violence is more powerful than violence. We are convinced that non-violence supports you if you have a just and moral cause...If you use violence, you have to sell part of yourself for that violence. Then you are no longer a master of your own struggle.

- Cesar Chavez

topic: Peace, Powerful, War, Unionism

As long as this great army of workers is scattered among so many craft unions, it will be impossible for them to unite and act in harmony together. Craft unionism is the negation of solidarity. The more unions you have, the less unity.

- Eugene V. Debs

topic: Army, Long, Unity, Great Army, Unionism

If capitalism is fair then unionism must be. If men and women have a right to capitalize their ideas and the resources of their country, then that implies the right of men and women to capitalize their labor.

- Frank Lloyd Wright

topic: Country, Men, Ideas, Labor And Capital, Labor Union

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

- Thomas Jefferson

source: Declaration of Independence (1776).

topic: Life, Change, Happiness, Social Equality, Inaugural Speech

If I went to work in a factory the first thing I'd do is join a union.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

topic: Work, Unions, Firsts, Labor Union, Organized Labor

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.

- Eugene V. Debs

topic: Crush, Struggle, Class, Trade Unions, Unionism

Modern Australian trade unionism and the unionist that I am doesn't rely on a class war view that somehow that the interests of employees and managers are in two separate spheres and they're irreconcilable. I believe that when people can go to work and be happy, satisfied, engaged, where the employer is getting employees who feel their interests are aligned with the employer, you get productivity. This is the future of Australian workplaces.

- Bill Shorten

source: Source: www.abc.net.au

topic: War, Believe, Class, Unionism

This led me to understand that trade unionism, the instrument of working-class liberation and of social change could, and indeed should, be also an instrument of industrial progress.

- Leon Jouhaux

topic: Class, Progress, Social, Unionism

I'm a lifelong believer in trade unionism.

- Charles Kennedy

topic: Lifelong, Trade, Believer, Unionism

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 arent in the best traditions of the AWU or, indeed, trade unionism.

- Bill Shorten

source: "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Unions, Tradition, Trade, Unionism

Loyalism, or Unionism, or Protestantism, or whatever you want to call it, in Northern Ireland - it operates not as a class system, but a caste system.

- Seamus Heaney

topic: Class, Want, Caste System, Class System, Protestantism

Fascism recognises the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade-unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which diverent interests are coordinated and harmonised in the unity of the State.

- Benito Mussolini

topic: Real, Giving, Unity, Guilds, Unionism

In the U.S. the powerful critics of austerity such as Paul Krugman and Robert Reich rightly identify the decline of 'labor' as a problem, and renewing trade unionism part of the solution. Our opportunity is to make the same case in the UK.

- Frances O'Grady

topic: Powerful, Opportunity, Austerity, Unionism

Arthur Scargill’s leadership of the miners’ strike has been a disgrace. The price to be paid for his folly will be immense. He will have destroyed the NUM as an effective fighting force within British trade unionism for the next 20 years. If kamikaze pilots were to form their own union, Arthur would be an ideal choice for leader.

- Jimmy Reid

topic: Fighting, Years, Choices, Unionism

...So they are trying to do something about it. They are not doing it by seeking charity. They are not begging at the welfare office. They are not, like many of their employers, lobbying the halls of Congress with their gold plated tin cups asking to be paid for not growing crops. They are trying to do it in the way that millions of other Americans have shown is the right way-organization, unionism, collective bargaining.

- Cesar Chavez

topic: Organization, Office, Trying, Bargaining, Collective Bargaining

All the time our union was progressing very nicely. There were lectures to make us understand what trades unionism is and our real position in the labor movement.

- Rose Schneiderman

topic: Real, Progress, Movement, Very Nice, Labor Movement

I believe in trade unionism, and I believe in democracy, in democratic trade unionism.

- Richard Attenborough

source: "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Believe, Democracy, Democratic, Unionism

There needs to be nationalist and republican confidence in unionism.

- Gerry Adams

topic: Needs, Republican, Unionism

Republican patience with how unionism deals with the political institutions, and with key issues like equality and human rights, will be tested because, obviously, there will be a battle a day on these matters. So lets face up to all of this with our eyes wide open.

- Gerry Adams

topic: Eye, Keys, Rights, Political Institutions, Eyes Wide Open

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

- George Bernard Shaw

source: Man and Superman (1903) act 3

topic: Married, Virtue, Trade, Man And Superman, Unionism

First they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I'm not a Jew. Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I'm not a socialist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because I'm not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, but by then there was no one left to help me.

- Martin Niemoller

source: Martin Niemöller (1986). “Exile in the Fatherland: Martin Niemöller's Letters from Moabit Prison”

topic: Catholic, Liberty, Firsts, Speaking Out, Democracy And Human Rights