Quotes from Tom Perez

The first Friday of every month is what we call Numbers Day - it's the day that the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the monthly jobs report. We have a ritual at the Labor Department - at 8 A.M., we gather around a table in my office, and the commissioner of labor statistics briefs me and the department's senior leadership on the numbers.

In terms of intellectual property, so many of the job creators I know are start-ups. In the IP setting, we can meaningfully improve on the status quo, and in so doing, we can help small businesses, large businesses, and those in between.

We're trying to make sure that financial advisers act like lawyers and doctors. When you go to a lawyer or doctor, they have an obligation to put your best interests first. Financial advisers don't.

We have to bake labor provisions into the core of an agreement. TPP would do that. Under NAFTA, countries had to simply promise to uphold the laws of their own nations.

My mother fiercely valued education. She entered college the same year I did, in 1979, and graduated eight years later. She was a remarkable role model for all of us.

As long as we're united, and as long as we continue to organize, invest, and lead with our values, we'll be unstoppable.

Discrimination is not a national defense strategy!

The Democratic Party has learned from the terrible mistakes of the past. Our platform requires that we honor, fulfill, and strengthen the federal government's trust responsibility to American Indians. We take this responsibility seriously.

To fulfill the promise of economic opportunity, we must remain true to the principle that collective bargaining is a cornerstone of a free society and indispensable to a strong middle class.

Misclassification is a serious problem in construction as well as other industries, and it is exacerbated by increasingly fissured employment structures where work is contracted and subcontracted away from the core company.

The Democratic Party and DNC have to be a very conspicuous face of the opposition to Donald Trump and all his divisiveness. At the same time, we have to communicate our, I think, positive and inclusive message to everyone.

Organizing has to be a 12-month endeavor.

On July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act. Its enactment, following the longest continuous debate in the history of the U.S. Senate, enshrined into law the basic principle upon which our country was founded - that all people are created equal.

On Veterans Day, I can't help think of my uncles who volunteered for the service after fleeing a brutal regime in the Dominican Republic. They hadn't been in America long, but they were already so grateful for its opportunities that they were eager to serve.

Apprenticeships are a particularly effective way to create career pathways with upward mobility and strong earning potential. Because apprentices receive a paycheck, it's a great option for those with families to support, including many veterans.

Improving veterans' employment is an all-hands-on-deck enterprise. We work with the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, with private sector partners and others.

Helping veterans isn't just a part of my job. For me, it's personal. It's in my blood.

Donald Trump, you don't stand for our values.

I happen to think Donald Trump is crazy, but that's not an economic message.

Trust is not something that's given because you win an election; it's something you have to earn.

If I don't get something done at the office at 4:30 in the afternoon, I can go back to it at 10:00 in the evening.

The politics of division are not what we want in New Jersey and Virginia and elsewhere.

Donald Trump's vision of America, his nativist vision of America, his fear mongering - that's what we have to fight.