QUOTES ON LABOR UNIONS #wiunion #killthebill #solidarityWI

QUOTES ON LABOR UNIONS

Our labor unions are not narrow, self-seeking groups. They have raised wages, shortened hours and provided supplemental benefits. Through collective bargaining and grievance procedures, they have brought justice and democracy to the shop floor. JOHN F. KENNEDY, speech, Aug. 30, 1960 With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men. CLARENCE DARROW, The Railroad Trainman, Nov. 1909 Labor unions would have us believe that they transfer income from rich capitalists to poor workers. In fact, they mostly transfer income from the large number of non-union workers to a small number of relatively well-off union workers. ROBERT E. ANDERSON, Just Get Out of the Way To a right-winger, unions are awful. Why do right-wingers hate unions? Because collective bargaining is the power that a worker has against the corporation. Right-wingers hate that. JANEANE GAROFALO, Majority Report, Jun. 3, 2005 The proper business of a labor union is to get higher wages, better hours and good shop conditions for the workmen. But when labor en masse plunks its vote for its own party, then the spirit of party loyalty begins to obscure labor's objectives -- high wages, short hours, decent shop conditions. Thus class-conscious labor leaders become more interested in their party welfare than in the fundamental objectives of the labor unions. So we shall have the class-conscious political worker trading his vote not for the immediate objective of wages, hours and shop conditions, but for power for his political labor boss. WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE, speech, Sep. 20, 1937 There was no precise moment when the tide began to turn against labor unions in America. There was no single catastrophic event -- no landmark strike that was broken, no massive organizing campaign that was turned back, no key negotiation that went poorly for labor. But beyond any doubt, since the early 1980s, unions have lost many of their resources and much of their influence. GARY CHAISON, Unions and Legitimacy The labor unions are group efforts in the direction of democracy. Like the political efforts in the same direction, they become many times stultified and lead up blind alleys. But the effort creates power. While the economic gains are themselves important and are measures of strength, the significance of the labor union is its assertion of the manhood of labor. HELEN MAROT, American Labor Unions The character of the labor movement derives in large part from the relations between labor unions. The extent to which values are shared and formal structures are inclusive matter too, of course, but it is the way unions deal with one another that largely determines whether labor solidarity is meaningful or a hollow pretense. DAVID J. WALSH, On Different Planes You know, when I was in college, there was a big debate: Do unions raise wages? Well, with regard to industrial unions, there were arguments back and forth -- international competition. It is now clear, I think, that whether or not you think unions raised wages 50 years ago, the absence of unions and their weakness that is inflicted by anti-union public policy depresses wages. The fact is that people who are not represented, in the service industries in particular, are the victims of policies which depress their wages BARNEY FRANK, speech, Jan. 3, 2007 To remember the loneliness, the fear and the insecurity of men who once had to walk alone in huge factories, beside huge machines—to realize that labor unions have meant new dignity and pride to millions of our countrymen—human companionship on the job, and music in the home—to be able to see what larger pay checks mean, not to a man as an employee, but as a husband and as a father—to know these things is to understand what American labor means. ADLAI STEVENSON, speech, Sep. 22, 1952