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Workers Rights Quotes

Browse 34 quotes about Workers Rights.

Workers Rights Quotes

“There is a huge shift to rewiring people from working class families to pursue education that is cheap, but profitable for corporations and corporatized educational institutions, and that is just enough for them to be trained as malleable workers at the service of the ruling class and their needs. We are in a country in which the few rich and privileged get quality education, while everyone else gets cheap training and acquire mediocre skills in the form of certificates of completion. The children of the rich go to Yale and Harvard and other big names, while those from poor working-class families get certificates in this or that skill that they can add to their resumes to be desired by employers. [From “On the Great Resignation” published on CounterPunch on February 24, 2023]”

PovertyCapitalismInequalityEquityEducation SystemClass StruggleCorporate CultureWorkers RightsWealth Gap
Author:Louis Yako
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“Labor Day honors the dignity of work and the enduring contributions of working people. It is dedicated to no single man, sect, or class, but to the tireless collective efforts of all who, through sweat, skill, and sacrifice, strive to build a better world—for ourselves, our children, and generations yet to come.”

WorkLabor DayLabour DayWorkers RightsLabor ActivismLabor Day QuotesInternational Labor DayWorkers DayWorkers UnionInternational Workers Day
Author:Aloo Denish Obiero
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“It was nicer that way. knowing that something called rights existed. The right to health care, to good and to schooling for our children . . . For us things were good; for others they were bad. Especially for the landowners, who are the ones who suffered most when we demanded our rights. They spend more and earn less. Besides, once we learned about the existence of rights we also learned not to bow our heads when the bosses scolds us. We learned to look them in the face.”

DignityUnionsWorkers RightsFarmworkers Rights
Book:One Day of Life
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“Rapid growth in wealth inequality results in the inevitable isolation of a very small, very rich, very privileged section of the community from the material experiences of everyone else. And when this out-of-touch minority group is enfranchised to make the decisions on behalf of people they don't know, can't see, have no wish to understand, and think of entirely in dehumanised, transactional, abstract terms, the results for the rest of us are devastating.”

LawUnionsEqualityInequalityFairnessEquityConservativesWorkers RightsInequityRight Wing Politics
Book:On Fairness
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“Bah! Do you think the poor people of the barrio pay for the upkeep of the Church? No! Wealth flows from wealth! And sources of wealth need stability to exist! And the Church provides stability! We teach the poor how to bear their burden; they are promised the kingdom of heaven, which is far more important than the little gains your strike would make …”

UnionsStrikesClass WarfareWorkers RightsReligious HypocrisyClass Traitor
Book:Heart of Aztlan
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“Those sons of bitches up there are to blame!' Another worker shouted and jumped forward. He shook an angry fist at the blank faces that looked down on the death scene from the offices atop the yard administration. 'Sánchez’s work crew had been cut back twice! It’s unsafe to work with so few men! You all know that! Yes, someone’s to blame, and the blame lies with those bastards that treat us like animals and our rotten union that won’t protect us!”

UnionsWorkersClass WarfareWorkers RightsUnskilled LaborClass SeparationCorrupt Unions
Book:Heart of Aztlan
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“The Australian union movement called an 'illegal' general strike in 1976, when Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser's government was trying to destroy our embryonic universal healthcare system. That strike brought the country to a standstill. Fraser backed down, and what became Medicare remains. The same people who disagree [with strike action] may also want to reflect on this the next time they enjoy a leisurely weekend, or are saved from an accident by workplace safety standards, or knock off work after an eight-hour shift. Union members won all these conditions in campaigns that were deemed 'illegal' industrial actiona at the time. These union members built the living standards we all enjoy. They should be celebrated and thanked for their bravery and sacrifices, not condemned and renounced.”

StrikesWorkers RightsUnion Movement
Book:On Fairness
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“Her legacy lies not just in the New Deal achievements she brought about, but in the regularly updated codes that protect workers in offices and factories everywhere. Today few people appreciate how different life was before Frances Perkins. We take for granted that children can go to school, not mills or coal mines every day; that people work for eight hours, not fifteen; that they get paid "time and a half" for overtime; that they can receive checks when unemployed or disabled; that they needn't dread the day when they can no longer work. Over seventy million Americans receive benefits under Social Security every month. The figure includes retirees, survivors, dependents, and the disabled. There was only one priority item on her famous wish list she presented to FDR before becoming Secretary of Labor that she and the New Deal were not able to fulfill. It was universal health care. She left us a single major unfilled goal, one we as a nation are still striving to realize.”

ResilienceWomens RightsSocial SecurityWorkplace SafetyWorkers RightsUniversal Health CareFranklin RooseveltSocial Justice CausesSelf Invented Women
Book:Frances Perkins: Champion of American Workers
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“The workers stayed in the plant instead of walking out, and this had clear advantages: they were directly blocking the use of strikebreakers; they did not have to act through union officials but were in direct control of the situation themselves; they did not have to walk outside in the cold and rain, but had shelter; they were not isolated, as in their work, or on the picket line; they were thousands under one roof, free to talk to one another, to form a community of struggle. Louis Adamic, a labor writer, describes one of the early sit-downs: Sitting by their machines, cauldrons, boilers and work benches, they talked. Some realized for the first time how important they were in the process of rubber production. Twelve men had practically stopped the works! . . . Superintendents, foremen, and straw bosses were dashing about. . . . In less than an hour the dispute was settled, full victory for the men.”

AmericaHistoryLaborUnionsUsaStrikeWorkers RightsLabor StrikeSit In
Book:A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present
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“The wonder was, it was there at all. It had been ruined so often, that it was amazing how it had borne so many shocks. Surely there never was such a fragile china-ware as that of which the millers of Coketown were made. Handle them never so lightly, and they fell to pieces with such ease that you might suspect them of having been flawed before. They were ruined, when they were required to send labouring children to school; they were ruined, when inspectors were appointed to look into their works; they were ruined when such inspectors considered it doubtful whether they were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery; they were utterly undone, when it was hinted that perhaps they need not always make quite so much smoke. Besides Mr Bounderby's gold spoon which was generally received in Coketown, another prevalent fiction was very popular there. It took the form of a threat. Whenever a Coketowner felt he was ill-used -- that is to say, whenever he was not left entirely alone, and it was proposed to hold him accountable for the consequences of any of his acts -- he was sure to come out with the awful menace, that he would 'sooner pitch his property into the Atlantic'. This had terrified the Home Secretary within an inch of his life, on several occasions.”

CapitalismRegulationPollutionWorkers RightsExternalities
Book:Hard Times
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“Every single Australian benefits from superannuation, Medicare, the weekend and the minimum wage - these were all won by our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents taking non-violent, so-called illegal industrial action. Working people only take these measures when the issue is one of justice, like ensuring workers' safety on a worksite, a fair day's pay for a fair day's work or to uphold or improve the rights of working people. Without the Australian trade union movement our country would look like the US where these rights are inadequate or do not exist.”

Workers RightsUnion MovementWorking PeopleIndustrial Action
Book:On Fairness
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“A primary function of police for 150 years has been to surveil, infiltrate, and crush progressive social movements seeking to reduce inequality. It's why police spied on, infiltrated, brutally repressed, and continue to crush labor, feminist, civil rights, anti-war, LGBTQ, environmental, reproductive rights, indigenous, and economic social justice movements.”

Civil RightsPolice BrutalityEnvironmentalismReproductive RightsCopagandaThe Mafia In BlueWorkers RightsLabor Rights
Book:Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News
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“Scientific management, so-called, is an attempt to apply the methods of science to the increasingly complex problems of the control of labor in rapidly growing capitalist enterprises. It lacks the characteristics of a true science because its assumptions reflect nothing more than the outlook of the capitalist with regard to the conditions of production. It starts, despite occasional protestations to the contrary, not from the human point of view but from the capitalist point of view, from the point of view of the management of a refractory work force in a setting of antagonistic social relations. It does not attempt to discover and confront the cause of this condition, but accepts it as an inexorable given, a “natural” condition. It investigates not labor in general, but the adaptation of labor to the needs of capital.”

CapitalismWorkersProductivityLabourWork EthicMonopolyWork HardManagement And LeadershipWorkers RightsScientific Management
Book:Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century
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“Poultry workers are paid very little: in the United States, two cents for every dollar spent on a fast-food chicken goes to workers, and some chicken operators use prison labor, paid twenty-five cents per hour. Think of this as Cheap Work. In the US poultry industry, 86 percent of workers who cut wings are in pain because of the repetitive hacking and twisting on the line. Some employers mock their workers for reporting injury, and the denial of injury claims is common. The result for workers is a 15 percent decline in income for the ten years after injury. While recovering, workers will depend on their families and support networks, a factor outside the circuits of production but central to their continued participation in the workforce. Think of this as Cheap Care. The food produced by this industry ends up keeping bellies full and discontent down through low prices at the checkout and drive-through. That's a strategy of Cheap Food....You can't have low-cost chicken without abundant propane: Cheap Energy. There is some risk in the commercial sale of these processed birds, but through franchising and subsidies, everything from easy financial and physical access to the land on which the soy feed for chickens is grown to small business loans, that risk is mitigated through public expense for private profit. This is one aspect of Cheap Money. Finally, persistent and frequent acts of chauvinism against categories of animal and human life -- such as women, the colonized, the poor, people of color, and immigrants -- have made each of these six cheap things possible. Fixing this ecology in place requires a final element -- the rule of Cheap Lives. Yet at every step of this process, humans resist....”

LaborChickenMay DayWorkers RightsPrison Labor
Book:A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet
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“In our country there's never been a successful progressive struggle that did not have a soundtrack, whether it was the civil rights movement, workers' rights movement, women's rights movement. There's got to be songs at the barricades, and those are the kinds of songs that I try to write.”

WritingTryingKindCountrySongStruggleSuccessfulRightsMovementWorkersCivil RightsOur CountryProgressiveWomens RightsCivil Rights MovementSoundtracksBarricadesWorkers Rights
Author:Tom Morello
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“I find it extraordinary that I'm being told I can't trust you the voter to get a government in to protect workers rights and that we need Brussels to defend you, the euro is a broken project we are going to pay, no you are going to pay out of your taxes one bailout out of another and the European union does not protect your jobs.”

NeedsDoeI CanGovernmentJobsPayRightsBrokenProtectTaxesProjectsUnionsExtraordinaryWorkersVotersEuropean UnionEuroBrusselsBailoutsWorkers RightsCan't Trust You
Author:Gisela Stuart
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“Policies are designed to undermine working class organization and the reason is not only the unions fight for workers' rights, but they also have a democratizing effect. These are institutions in which people without power can get together, support one another, learn about the world, try out their ideas, initiate programs, and that is dangerous. That's like a referendum in Greece. It is dangerous to allow that.”

PeopleWorldTryingIdeasReasonTogetherFightingClassSupportRightsEffectsDangerousPolicyProgramOrganizationInstitutionsUnionsWorkersWorking ClassGreeceGet TogetherInitiateReferendumsWorkers Rights
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining…. We demand this fraud be stopped.”

PurposeFightingRightsDemandLaborUnionsCivil RightsGloriousCollectivesWorking ItFraudDecencySlogansCivil Rights MovementFooledBargainingLabor UnionWorkers RightsCollective BargainingLabor Laws
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“This partisan decision by a packed GOP state Supreme Court takes away worker's rights to bargain for a safe place to work. It underscores the need to vote for me in Aug. 12th primary. As governor, I will call a special session of the Legislature on day one to restore workers' rights, health care and retirement.”

NeedsStatesCareDecisionRightsSpecialSafeVoteCourtWorkersSupremePrimariesHealth CareWorking ItRetirementGovernorsSupreme CourtSessionBargainsLegislaturePartisansGopSafe PlacesVote For MeWorkers Rights
Author:Chris Larson
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“Hard-working immigrant workers in this country deserve a real path to citizenship as a part of comprehensive immigration reform...We will continue to work with the immigrant rights community and our allies in Congress to devise a truly comprehensive model that places immigrant and workers' rights at the head of the line.”

RealCountryHardCommunityLinesPathRightsHard WorkModelsDeserveWorkersCongressImmigrationReformImmigrantsAlliesCitizenshipComprehensiveImmigration ReformWorkers RightsImmigrant Workers
Author:John Sweeney
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