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
Massive Trade Unions quotations
Where trade unions are most firmly organized, there are the rights of the people most respected.
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.
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.
Without the presence of class warfare, trade unions would be hard put to justfy their existence.
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.
In a political struggle of class against class, organization of trade unions is the most important weapon.
We will stand by our friends and administer a stinging rebuke to men or parties who are either indifferent, negligent, or hostile, and, wherever opportunity affords, to secure the election of intelligent, honest, earnest trade unionists, with clear, unblemished, paid-up union cards in their possession.
If we want to make progress in key areas now, we have to build a multi-stakeholder process, harnessing the appropriate energies. So not only the politicians but also business, the wider civil society, and the trade union movement all have a contribution to make, whether it is at national or at international level.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The hellish instruments of war must be smoked out while there is still peace.
The Trade Union Movement must be compelled not to allow their old resolutions to fade in the files.
For the ordinary man is passive. Within a narrow circle (home life, and perhaps the trade unions or local politics) he feels himself master of his fate, but against major events he is as helpless as against the elements. So far from endeavoring to influence the future, he simply lies down and lets things happen to him.
By outlawing Solidarity, a free trade organization to which an overwhelming majority of Polish workers and farmers belong, they have made it clear that they never had any intention of restoring one of the most elemental human rights the right to belong to a free trade union.
When poems stop talking about the moon and begin to mention poverty, trade unions, color, color lines and colonies, somebody tells the police.
There is no doubt that this government and this country are benefiting from the reforms that we brought in the 1980s, and that couldn't have been done without the co-operation of the trade union movement.
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.
It is necessary to be able to withstand all this, to agree to any and every sacrifice, and even - if need be - to resort to all sorts of stratagems, manoeuvres and illegal methods, to evasion and subterfuges in order to penetrate the trade unions, to remain in them, and to carry on Communist work in them at all costs.
I am for joining a free trade zone. The European Union is not such zone, but a zone of raging bureaucracy which stears every hectolitre of wine, and every tone of beef.
The trade unions are a long-established and essential part of our national life.
We take our stand by these pillars of our British society as it has gradually developed and evolved itself, of the right of individual labouring men to adjust their wages and conditions by collective bargaining, including the right to strike.
Trade unionism is not socialism. It is the capitalism of the proletariat.
The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.
there is nothing more American than the trade-union movement.
People must learn more and more that the strength of this country is the democratic power of the trade union movement.
Hence, within the space of two generations there has been a complete revolution in the attitude of the trades-unions toward the women working in their trades.
... 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.
Trade unions are islands of anarchy in a sea of chaos.
No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union official.
There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesn't actually fall down.
I fear that within 10 years gays, trade union activists and left wing politicians will be led off to the gas chambers.
Are we all clear that we want to build something that can aspire to be a world power? In other words, not just a trading bloc but a political entity. Do we realise that our nation states, taken individually, would find it far more difficult to assert their existence and their identity on the world stage.
With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed.