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Labor Quotes


"The organization and constant onward sweep of this movement exemplifies the resentment of the many toward the selfishness, greed and the neglect of the few."


"Laissez Faire was very good sauce for the goose, labor, but was very poor sauce for the gander, capital."


"So May 4th in the labor movement has always been an important date."


"It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses."


"There would be a paragraph about some veteran digging tunnels for the Germans in a slave labor camp, or something like that. Finally I decided to look it up and go further into it."


"When you are laboring for others let it be with the same zeal as if it were for yourself."


"You don't have a very motivated working class, it starts to affect the dynamics of the economy. If workers are disenchanted and disenfranchised, productivity losses will go along with that."


"What one state could not get alone, what one miner against a powerful corporation could not achieve, can be achieved by the union."


"I have always been fully persuaded that, through co-operation, labor could become its own employer."


"We don't want a third party who may or may not have our best interests in mind or our crew members' best interests in mind because they may be serving a union of one of our competitors. They are trying to equalize us and take away our competitive advantage."


"I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden."


"Every job from the heart is, ultimately, of equal value. The nurse injects the syringe; the writer slides the pen; the farmer plows the dirt; the comedian draws the laughter. Monetary income is the perfect deceiver of a man's true worth."


"Thanks to his salary, an employee is free to eat whatever, wherever. However, because of his job, he is not free to eat whenever."


"Just as invasion is the true and tried weapon in the hands of capital against the class struggle, so on the other hand the fearless pursuit of the class struggle has always proven the most effective preventative of foreign invasions."


"We've always been in favor of improved wages for workers. When you have a strong middle class, they want to buy more stuff at Costco."


"Labor can and will become its own employer through co-operative association."


"Less than 8 percent of private sector workers belonged to a union in 2004, and, overall, only 12.5 percent of American workers carry a union card - down from about one-third of workers in labor's heydays in the 1950s."


"Congress has not raised the minimum wage since 1997. The minimum wage is now at its lowest level in 50 years adjusted for inflation."


"Well, we see an increasingly weaker labor movement as a result of the overall assault on the labor movement and as a result of the globalization of capital."


"Man cannot live by incompetence alone."


"Only Socrates knew, after a lifetime of unceasing labor, that he was ignorant. Now every high-school student knows that. How did it become so easy?"


"Working-class Americans have waited too long, close to a decade in fact, for an increase in the minimum wage. This has been the second longest period without a pay raise since the Federal minimum wage law was first enacted in 1938."


"There is no labor a person does that is undignified; if they do it right."


"All labour is directed towards producing some effect."


"He who tampers with the currency robs labor of its bread."


"Those who invest in South Africa should not think they are doing us a favor; they are here for what they get out of our cheap and abundant labor, and they should know that they are buttressing one of the most vicious systems."


"Large fortunes are all founded either on the occupation of land, or lending or the taxation of labor."


"We always strive to be the best in the wage package."


"There's a lot of labor involved in the birth of a new town."


"I don't know where Bush is going - yet. But, Sharon obviously - I wrote somewhere in the last several months, that Sharon has adopted, essentially, the position of the Labor Party: that the Palestinians are here to stay."


"The Bush administration staunchly opposed legislation which would preserve overtime pay for all workers."


"If capital and labor ever do get together it's good night for the rest of us."


"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."


"Poorly paid labor is inefficient labor, the world over."


"A labor strike will tear away a lot of the good things going for this league."


"Employment is slavery. Workers merely have a choice over where to serve their daily eight-hour sentence."
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