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Labor Movement Quotes

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Labor Movement Quotes

“In April 2001, a student group called the Progressive Student Labor Movement took over the offices of the university’s president, demanding a living wage for Harvard janitors and food workers. That spring, a daily diversion on the way to class was to see which national figure—Cornel West or Ted Kennedy one day, John Kerry or Robert Reich another—had turned up in the Yard to encourage the protesters. Striding past the protesters and the politicians addressing them, on my way to a “Pizza and Politics” session with a journalist like Matt Bai or a governor like Howard Dean, I did not guess that the students poised to have the greatest near-term impact were not the social justice warriors at the protests […] but a few mostly apolitical geeks who were quietly at work in Kirkland House”

ActivismHarvardNeoliberalismElitismLabor MovementZuckerbergTechnocracySocial Justice WarriorsCornel WestLabor Strike
Book:Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future
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“W.Z. Foster {head of the American Communist Party}, who had no money, went to Moscow and came back and announced that he was building a great secret machine to undermine the American labor movement and turn it over to the Red International, owned by Lenin. He began publication of an expensive magazine and proclaimed 'a thousand secret agents in a thousand communities.'”

TurnsCommunityPartySecretMovementBuildingThousandRedLaborMachinesInternationalJewMagazinesAgentsExpensiveCommunistPublicationNo MoneyMoscowCommunist PartyLabor MovementSecret Agent
Author:Samuel Gompers
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“So long as we have held fast to voluntary principles and have been actuated and inspired by the spirit of service, we have sustained our forward progress, and we have made our labor movement something to be respected and accorded a place in the councils of the Republic. Where we have blundered into trying to force a policy or decision, even though wise and right, we have impeded if not interrupted the realization of our own aims.”

IfsTryingLongHas BeensMadeSpiritForceDecisionPrinciplesWiseProgressPolicyMovementLaborAimInspiredRealizationRepublicCouncilInterruptedLabor MovementForward Progress
Book:The American Federationist
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“The organized labor movement as it is constituted today is as much a concomitant of a capitalist economy as is capital. Organized labor is predicated upon the basic premise of collective bargaining between employers and employees. This premise can obtain only for an employer-employee type of society. If the labor movement is to maintain its own identity and security, it must of necessity protect that kind of society.”

IfsKindTodayPoliticsEconomySecurityMovementIdentityTypeProtectLaborOrganizedLiberalismEmployeeCollectivesCapitalistEmployersPremisesBargainingLabor MovementOrganized LaborCollective BargainingCapitalist Economy
Book:Reveille for Radicals
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“To me, the labor movement was never just a way of getting higher wages. What appealed to me was the spiritual side of a great cause that created fellowship. You wanted the girl or the man who worked beside you to be treated just as well as you were, and an injury to one was the concern of all.”

MenWayWellsWantedSpiritualGirlCausesSidesMovementHe ManHigherConcernLaborTreatedInjuryWagesFellowshipGetting HighBeside YouLabor Movement
Book:All for one
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“Collective bargaining has always been the bedrock of the American labor movement. I hope that you will continue to anchor your movement to this foundation. Free collective bargaining is good for the entire Nation. In my view, it is the only alternative to State regulation of wages and prices - a path which leads far down the grim road of totalitarianism. Those who would destroy or further limit the rights of organized labor - those who would cripple collective bargaining or prevent organization of the unorganized - do a disservice to the cause of democracy.”

StatesNationsCausesViewsDemocracyPathRightsMovementLimitsLaborOrganizationFoundationAlternativesOrganizedCollectivesRegulationWagesTotalitarianismAnchorsGrimCripplesBargainingBedrockDisserviceLabor MovementOrganized LaborCollective Bargaining
Author:John F. Kennedy
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“English audiences of working people are like an instrument that responds to the player. Thought ripples up and down them, and if in some heart the speaker strikes a dissonance there is a swift answer. Always the voice speaks from gallery or pit, the terrible voice which detaches itself in every English crowd, full of caustic wit, full of irony or, maybe, approval.”

PeopleIfsHeartSpeakVoiceAnswersAudiencePlayerTerribleLaborEnglandInstrumentsCrowdsStrikesWitIronySpeakersApprovalUp And DownPitsGalleryRippleDissonanceLabor MovementCaustic
Author:Mary Heaton Vorse
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“What created democracy was Thomas Paine and Shays Rebellion, the suffragists and the abolitionists and on down through the populists and the labor movement, including the Wobblies. Tough, in your face people... Mother Jones, Woody Guthrie... Martin Luther King and Caesar Chavez. And now it’s down to us.”

PeopleFacesMotherDemocracyMovementKingsToughLaborIncludingRebellionYour FaceLutherWoodyPopulistAbolitionistLabor MovementPaineChavezShaySuffragists
Author:Jim Hightower
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“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.”

Has BeensCountryHappensSocialDealsHappenedStyleMovementRedLaborDemocraticSufficientScareBeneficialCrushed1930sWilsonNew DealLabor Movement
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“The community itself didn't support the union. Now that's kind of interesting about [Barack] Obama, because Obama was supposedly a community organizer in Chicago at that time. Now I'm sure he read the Chicago Tribune, so he knew about it, but when he went to show his solidarity with the workforce, the first place he went was Caterpillar. I don't think he's forgotten, and the labor movement didn't react. Even radical labor historians didn't remember. It was only 15 years ago, after all, but that's a real triumph of propaganda in many ways.”

ThinkingWayYearsFirstsKindRealShowsRememberCommunityInterestingSupportMovementYears AgoLaborUnionsForgottenRadicalBarackTriumphPropagandaChicagoHistorianSolidarityWorkforceCaterpillarsOrganizerLabor Movement
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label.”

InspirationalTodaySocialHoursFamilyClassPlansWeekMiddleSecurityMovementBearsLaborUnionsSecureGrantedLabelsMiddle ClassRetirementMinimumSocial SecurityMedicareMinimum WageCornerstonesLabor UnionLabor MovementMiddle Class FamilyPersonal LeadershipWork Week
Author:Barack Obama
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“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.”

Has BeensTodayPoliticalCertainPoliticsKnownOpinionSunMovementPlanetsPoliticianThousandTenLaborUltimateCourtPressesMissionsSettingSettingsRealizationHistoricPublic OpinionDeceivedThugMilitiaBruisedLabor MovementOrganized LaborLabour Movement
Author:Eugene V. Debs
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“What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.”

WantDoeBookFactsBeautifulOpportunityJusticeLearningTeachingChildhoodLaborGreedVicesRevengeNobleJailLeisureWomanhoodManhoodArsenalLabor MovementOrganized LaborLabour Movement
Author:Samuel Gompers
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“In less than a century we experienced great movement. The youth movement! The labor movement! The civil rights movement! The peace movement! The solidarity movement! The women's movement! The disability movement! The disarmament movement! The gay rights movement! The environmental movement! Movement! Transformation! Is there any reason to believe we are done?”

BelieveReasonDoneWomenRightsCenturyMovementYouthGayLaborTransformationEnvironmentalCivil RightsDisabilityWomens RightsSolidarityCivil Rights MovementGay RightsDisarmamentLabor Movement
Author:Holly Near
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“Legislators who are of even average intelligence stand out among their colleagues. . . . A cultured college president has become as much a rarity as a literate newspaper publisher. A financier interested in economics is as exceptional as a labor leader interested in the labor movement. For the most part our leaders are merely following out in front; they [only] marshal us in the way that we are going.”

WayPresidentLeadershipLeaderFrontsMovementCollegeEconomicsLaborAverageIntelligenceFollowingNewspapersColleaguesPublishersStanding OutExceptionalLegislatorsRarityLabor MovementFinanciers
Book:The Spoor of Spooks: And Other Nonsense
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“With all of the talk about polling and demographics, I think too many people have lost touch with the human and moral crisis of deportations. Every day, roughly 1,000 people are deported because the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives is denying the majority of the US Congress a chance to vote on citizenship. I will be arrested today because the labor movement stands with the families tragically ripped apart by John Boehner and the House Republicans’ embrace of a broken immigration system.”

PeopleThinkingHumansTodayHouseLostChanceMoralMovementBrokenRepublicanLaborVoteCrisisMajorityEmbraceCongressImmigrationRepresentativesCitizenshipArrestedRippedDemographicsHouse Of RepresentativesPollingDeportationLabor MovementMoral Crisis
Author:Arlene Holt Baker
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“The great social justice changes in our country have happened when people came together, organized, and took direct action. It is this right that sustains and nurtures our democracy today. The civil rights movement, the labor movement, the women's movement, and the equality movement for our LGBT brothers and sisters are all manifestations of these rights.”

PeopleCountryTodayActionTogetherSocialJusticeDemocracyRightsHappenedMovementBrotherLaborDirectSocial JusticeCivil RightsOur CountryManifestationOrganizedLgbtNurtureBrothers And SistersCivil Rights MovementLabor MovementDirect Action
Author:Dolores Huerta
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