Quotes About Labor

An injunction the city had obtained against a sanitation strike in 1966 was still in effect, and could be wielded against the local.

Work stoppages in America declined from 3,111 in 1977 to only 385 by 1995, even as real wages lost 15 percent of their value—data that, as if on a diagnostic chart, revealed an ailing U.S. labor movement.96

working at reduced pay, with marginal perks and nonexistent health coverage.

He did not believe the AFL-CIO was up to these challenges. "As the parent body of the American labor movement, [it] suffers from a sense of complacency and adherence to the status quo, and is not fulfilling the basic aims and purposes which prompted the merger of the AFL and CIO" in the first place, Reuther remarked in December 1967.

the growth of trade unions into mighty business enterprises.

a strike in the era of globalization must be vigorously supported by allies near and far and exceptionally well managed.

It had linked its fate to the activism of a political party that was far from activist, that largely took labor's support for granted; there seemed little real pressure on the Democrats to deliver for labor when it knew, everyone knew, that labor had nowhere else to go.

If they employ men to make music, then these men must abandon their work of ploughing, planting, and cultivation.

Thirty years will pass before I remember that moment when suddenly I knew each man has one brother who dies when he sleeps and sleeps when he rises to face this life, and that together they are only one man sharing a heart that always labours, hands yellowed and cracked, a mouth that gasps for breath and asks, Am I gonna make it?

LABOR The groups within the labor sector comprise primarily trade unions. Some are extremely small and specialized, whereas others are

The silkworm spins out his life, and, wrapping himself in his labor, dies.

When it's harder to live, is life more absolute? On my mute senses evening shores, also mute is the old reason defining my selfhood: it is an inner path a silent underwood where all is nature. Toilsome labor of obscure existence, you alone are necessary... And gently you drive me beyond human boundaries

There is no substitute under the heavens for productive labor. It is the process by which dreams become realities. It is the process by which idle visions become dynamic achievements.

We are all fed from hundreds and thousands of hands. Often we do not know whose they are nor how they work. Only a few of us ever visualize the hands that grope in the coal mines or push levers in the mills or handle axes in the lumber camp.

My grandfather, who brought me up, was a coal miner. I visited the mines with him. I remember it vividly. It was horrible. I'm glad I didn't go into the family business.

Labor, and the ability to earn one's own way, is central to dignity and, indeed, to vocation. Christians should seek to broaden the private economy to include more individuals in remunerative labor.

At times you feel like you're the only voice speaking out to improve the working conditions of people, whether it's to be able to collectively bargain, to get adequate pay, to know that you can come home safe out of a coal mine.

We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.

If you have poor management that's not doing the right job, you end up with unions filling the void and... page after page of work rules and thicker and thicker contracts.

If the U.S. fails to set the rules for global trade, then other countries with records of environmental and labor abuses, like China, will step in to fill the void.

The course that will restore to the workmen a father's duties and responsibilities, between which and themselves the state has now stepped, is for them to reject all forced contributions from others, and to do their own work through their own voluntary combinations.

Services like Google and Facebook only exist because of the social acceptance of a mass amount of distributed volunteer labor from tons and tons of people.

I'm a working writer; this is my job. So it matters to me that it's good. I sweat over every word. I don't just vomit this stuff up. It's agony. The only thing that comes close is childbirth, except it's like being in labor for eighteen months.

When you spend a lot of time in your job, you realize you're just selling your time in exchange for money.