105 Labor Movement Quotes

Following is our list of labor movement quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about labor union.

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Famous Labor Movement Quotes

The labor movement is organized upon a principle that the strong shall help the weak. — John L. Lewis

The labor movement was the principal force that transforme­d misery and despair into hope and progress. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

a labor victory must be economic and it must be revolutionizing. — Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Organized labor is the only way to have fair distribution of wealth... - Dolores Huerta

Organized labor is the only way to have fair distribution of wealth... — Dolores Huerta

It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize. — Theodore Roosevelt

Labor gives birth to ideas. - Jim Rohn

Labor gives birth to ideas. — Jim Rohn

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

The trade union movement represents the organized economic power of the workers... It is in reality the most potent and the most direct social insurance the workers can establish. — Samuel Gompers

The only effective answer to organized greed is organized labor. — Thomas R. Donahue

What can Labor do for itself? The answer is not difficult. Labor can organize, it can unify; it can consolidate its forces. This done, it can demand and command. — Eugene V. Debs

Without labor nothing prospers. — Sophocles

Labor is not fighting for a larger slice of the national pie-labor is fighting for a larger pie. — Walter Reuther

Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration — Abraham Lincoln

It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that it have free and independent labor unions. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Revolution is an inalienable right of mankind. Freedom is an imperishable birth right of all. Labor is the real sustainer of society, the sovereignty of the ultimate destiny of the workers. — Bhagat Singh

Short Labor Movement Quotes

  • Labour is the source of every blessing. — Aesop
  • Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor. — Ulysses S. Grant
  • United we stand, divided we fall is one of the oldest and truest slogans of the Labour movement. — Jeremy Corbyn
  • The end of labor is to gain leisure. — Aristotle
  • Where trade unions are most firmly organized, there are the rights of the people most respected. — Samuel Gompers

Labor Movement Image Quotes

Labor movement quote All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.
All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.

Labour Movement Quotes

Such a scheme.. the betrayal of the national democracy of Industrial Ulster, would mean a carnival of reaction both North and South, would set back the wheels of progress, would destroy the oncoming unity of the Irish labour movement and paralyse all advanced movements while it lasted. — James Connolly

In some ways, [the student anti-sweatshop movement] is like the anti-apartheid movement, except that in this case its striking at the core of the relations of exploitation. Much of this was initiated by Charlie Kernaghan of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights. — Sayings

We have a great objective - the light on the hill - which we aim to reach by working for the betterment of mankind not only here but anywhere we may give a helping hand. If it were not for that, the Labour movement would not be worth fighting for. — Ben Chifley

Labor movement quote Dare to be honest and fear no labor.
Dare to be honest and fear no labor.

The labor movement means just this: It is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth. — Wendell Phillips

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

If a Labour movement, on a bourgeois basis, has hitherto existed in the country where the new movement is awakening it will certainly not disappear all at once. — Karl Radek

Labor movement quote In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.
In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.

Arthur Scargill is the Labour movements nearest equivalent to a First World War General. — Neil Kinnock

Labor is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission of emancipating the workers of the world from the thraldom of the ages is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun. — Eugene V. Debs

In general, if signs of sectarianism do appear in a Socialist Party, these are only the products of the absence of a broad Labour movement in the country. — Karl Radek

In the United States of North America, every independent movement of the workers was paralysed so long as slavery disfigured a part of the Republic. Labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded. — Karl Marx

Labor Union Quotes

The people united will never be defeated. - Cesar Chavez

The people united will never be defeated. — Cesar Chavez

My friends, it is solidarity of labor we want. We do not want to find fault with each other, but to solidify our forces and say to each other: We must be together; our masters are joined together and we must do the same thing. — Mother Jones

No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country... By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level - I mean the wages of decent living. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Labor movement quote There is no substitute for hard work.
There is no substitute for hard work.

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. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them." - Franklin D. Roosevelt — Franklin D. Roosevelt

One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts. — Molly Ivins

Only a fool would try to deprive working men and working women of their right to join the union of their choice. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

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. — Barack Obama

Our movement is of the working people, for the working people, by the working people. . . . There is not a right too long denied to which we do not aspire in order to achieve; there is not a wrong too long endured that we are not determined to abolish. — Samuel Gompers

Labor never quits. We never give up the fight - no matter how tough the odds, no matter how long it takes. — George Meany

Organized Labor Quotes

Wealth is not the fruit of labor but the result of organized protected robbery. — Frantz Fanon

Labor organizations are formed, not to employ combined effort for a common object, but to indulge in declamation and denunciation, and especially to furnish an easy living to some officers who do not want to work. — William Graham Sumner

Business, labor and civil society organizations have skills and resources that are vital in helping to build a more robust global community. — Kofi Annan

If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves. — Lane Kirkland

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

Let the workers organize. Let the toilers assemble. Let their crystallized voice proclaim their injustices and demand their privileges. Let all thoughtful citizens sustain them, for the future of Labor is the future of America. — John L. Lewis

If the workers are organized, all they have to do is to put their hands in their pockets and they have got the capitalist class whipped. — Bill Haywood

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

Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior ofcapital, and deserves muchthe higher consideration. — Abraham Lincoln

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

Trade Unions Quotes

The Berlin Wall wasn't the only barrier to fall after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Traditional barriers to the flow of money, trade, people and ideas also fell. — Fareed Zakaria

The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness. — Vladimir Lenin

Without the presence of class warfare, trade unions would be hard put to justfy their existence. — Karl Marx

The crisis in Ukraine is all the European Union's fault. Its leaders negotiated a trade deal with Ukraine, which essentially blackmailed the country to choose between Europe and Russia. — Marine Le Pen

In a political struggle of class against class, organization of trade unions is the most important weapon. — Friedrich Engels

We are the trade union for pensioners and children, the trade union for the disabled and the sick... the trade union for the nation as a whole. — Edward Heath

Our shared histories and common values make us natural trading partners and we will continue to work with both the United Kingdom and the European Union as we move forward with this new decision. — Justin Trudeau

Social Democratic and trade union organs have approved of the illegal invasion of Belgium, of the massacre of suspected guerrillas, as well as their wives and children, as well as the destruction of their homes in various towns and districts. — Clara Zetkin

The trade unions and the Labour Party... failed miserably. Instead of giving concrete support, and calling upon workers to take industrial action, they did nothing. — Arthur Scargill

The trouble with the Labour Party leadership and the trade union leadership, they're quite willing to applaud millions on the streets of the Philippines or in Eastern Europe, without understanding the need to also produce millions of people on the streets of Britain. — Arthur Scargill

People Writing About Labor Movement

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Read quotes by Samuel Gompers

Samuel Gompers
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Read quotes by John L. Lewis

John L. Lewis
quotes on leadership, john l lewis and life

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Read quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr.
quotes on courage, leadership and equality

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Read quotes by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

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Read quotes by Dolores Huerta

Dolores Huerta
quotes on education

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Read quotes by Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt
quotes on leadership, imperialism and nature

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More Labor Movement Quotes

Increased interest and participation by labor in the affairs of government should make for economic and political stability in the future. Labor has a constitutional and statutory right to participate. — John L. Lewis

The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

The wage-earning class the world over are the victims of society. — Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

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. — Rose Schneiderman

If we don't have workers organized into labor unions, we're in great peril of losing our democracy. — Dolores Huerta

What was the good of industrial development, what was the good of all the technological innovations, toil, and population movements if, after half a century of industrial growth, the condition of the masses was still just as miserable as before, and all lawmakers could do was prohibit factory labor by children under the age of eight? — Thomas Piketty

Slowly those who create the wealth of the world are permitted to share it. The future is in labor's strong, rough hands. — Mother Jones

I would be the last to condemn the thousands of sincere and dedicated people outside the churches who have labored unselfishly through various humanitarian movements to cure the world of social evils, for I would rather a man be a committed humanist than an uncommitted Christian. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the works of man, everything is as poor as its author; vision is confined, means are limited, scope is restricted, movements are labored, and results are humdrum. — Joseph De Maistre

there is nothing more American than the trade-union movement. — Rose Schneiderman

I had never before seen my friends come in beaten, their heads laid open, their noses broken, or seen them jailed for peaceably demonstrating that they wanted work. I had only known how workers lived. Now I was face to face with what our society did to workers who could get no work. — Mary Heaton Vorse

Historically, if you look back at the struggle to end slavery, the struggle to gain womens' right to vote, the labor movement - these were big social transitions in which there was a movement on the ground in which a lot of people died, but it also took an independent political party. — Jill Stein

There is nothing stronger than the American labor movement. United, we cannot and we will not be turned aside. Well work for it, sisters and brothers. Well stand for it. Together. Each of us. To bring out the best in America. To bring out the best in ourselves, and each other. — Richard Trumka

They's making it worse, the labor movement got the mafia curse. — Frank Zappa

The labor movement is people. Our unions have brought millions of men and women together, made them members one of another, and given them common tools for common goals. Their goals are goals for all America - and their enemies are the enemies for progress. The two cannot be separated. — John F. Kennedy

I have been very interested in labor movement. If I could have wished another life, I would have loved to be a pioneer woman in the beginning of labor movement. — Astrid Lindgren

In the late 19th century there was a major union organization, Knights of Labor, and also a radical populist movement based on farmers. It's hard to believe, but it was based in Texas, and it was quite radical. They wanted their own banks, their own cooperatives, their own control over sales and commerce. — Noam Chomsky

The labor movement has a great role to play in our country today. — Eleanor Roosevelt

The question is always 'What is the role of a labor movement?' How much is about collective bargaining, how much is about social change for all workers? — Andy Stern

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

So May 4th in the labor movement has always been an important date. — William Kunstler

[The labor movement is] a movement of the working people, for the working people, by the working people, governed by ourselves, with its policies determined by ourselves. — Samuel Gompers

Volunteers are the backbone, heart, and soul of the restoration movement. And whatever the eventual results of their labors may be, working to revive damaged ecosystems is transforming and strengthening their relationship with the rest of nature. — William K. Stevens

The strike of the miners in Arizona was one of the most remarkable strikes in the history of the American labor movement. Its peaceful character, its successful outcome, were due to that most remarkable character, Governor Hunt. — Mary Harris Jones

Because women of color were more likely to be in the paid labor force, they were more likely to recognize discrimination, so they were always leading the women's movement. — Gloria Steinem

Reconstruction was a vast labor movement of ignorant, muddled, and bewildered white men who had been disinherited of land and labor and fought a long battle with sheer subsistence, hanging on the edge of poverty, eating clay and chasing slaves and now lurching up to manhood. — W. E. B. Du Bois

Before the war there were many who were more or less ignorant of the international labor movement but who nevertheless turned to it for salvation when the threat of war arose. They hoped that the workers would never permit a war. — Hjalmar Branting

When the industrial revolution happened there was the Luddistic movement, and there was a fear that machinery would replace all the labor. Whenever we had a technological revolution we had this fear. So if you look backwards, these fears were not justified, and I think they were driven by our very human inability to visualize what new jobs will be created by this new technology. — Branko Milanovic

The major organizing centers, like the labor movement, have been severely weakened in the United States by policy. — Noam Chomsky

Wherever I found resistance to oppression, whether in Africa, in Latin America, certainly here in America in the South, I joined that resistance. I took part in the labor movement, in social movements, in the church community. I felt that it was the honorable thing to do and still do. — Harry Belafonte

The labor movement can be rebuilt, as has happened before after sharp declines. — Noam Chomsky

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. — Noam Chomsky

Trump's principal policies make clear what's going to happen. This gives an opportunity. Right now it's going to take hard work, but it's possible that there could be a real revival of the labor movement. — Noam Chomsky

When the New Deal programs were passed in the mid 1930s, millions of workers were joining unions, striking, and occupying factories to fight for a better life. It was this radical labor movement that forced the establishment to make concessions. — Kshama Sawant

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