STRIKES & STRUGGLE
In my time we was beaten, rotten egged, cussed, threatened, tarred and feathered and blackballed from other jobs. Hurt in so many different ways. But at our meetings our advice to the men and women that was hurt, we would just say to them what the good book says, the Lord will not put more upon you than you can bear, at least none of us lost our lives like some did in the early 30's. Thank God!... —W.M. "Jack" Anderson, first local president, UAW local 645 (TX)
We'll hold this line until Hell freezes over -- Then we'll hold it on ice skates.—Anonymous, picket sign
Silence never won rights. They are not handed down from above; they are forced by pressures from below.—Roger Baldwin
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.—Steven Biko
We are not complaining about the work. We want to see our hard work reflected in our pay.—Emmett J. Bogdon, President NALC Branch #116 (IN)
We'll hold this line until Hell freezes over -- Then we'll hold it on ice skates.—Anonymous, picket sign
Silence never won rights. They are not handed down from above; they are forced by pressures from below.—Roger Baldwin
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.—Steven Biko
We are not complaining about the work. We want to see our hard work reflected in our pay.—Emmett J. Bogdon, President NALC Branch #116 (IN)
The American Woolen Company ran the mills and the town of Lawrence, Massachusetts, charging the immigrant laborers in rent pretty much what they paid them in salary. Workers, including children, were making between 7 and 9 dollars a week for over 60 hours of work. To survive, multiple families would crowd into tiny and unsafe apartment buildings and ate mostly bread and beans. Half of their children died by the age of 6 and a third were dead before the age of 25. When a state law passed limiting the hours women and children could work to 54, the company cut wages accordingly. Naturally, the rent the company charged was unchanged. Workers walked out, in the middle of the New England winter, and the Governor sent in the militia. The strikers were routinely clubbed and beaten by the police and militia. There were reports of about a dozen strikers killed in the two month strike. Authorities tried to pin the deaths on the protesters, but they fired back 'bayonets cannot weave cloth'. Strikers won national sympathy when they sent their children to New York and other towns for safety, which was widely reported. The company eventually agreed to a 15% pay hike as well as other concessions--but all the gains were lost in the years that followed as the company bosses chipped away, pitting workers against each other. The 'Bread and Roses' strike takes its name from the poem reportedly published in 1911 and attributed to James Oppenheim.
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Striking worker clubbed in Lawrence, MA
Better to starve fighting than to starve working.-- A slogan of the Lawrence, Massachusetts "Bread and Roses" strike of 1912
Yes, it is bread we fight for--but we fight for roses too.—"Bread and Roses," a strike poem
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Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?—Robert Browning
Those unions that enjoy the right to strike have no guarantee that sacrificing their jobs and their livelihood will result in victory but they nevertheless engage in lengthy strikes, not because they are assured of winning but because they are determined to fight.—William Burrus, 1998
Tell them that the APWU is united and strong. Here we are, and we are prepared to fight.—APWU President William Burrus
While our soldiers fight overseas' to instill freedom and rights, stand on the battlefields of home and fight to keep them!—Mark Case, APWU Local 277, Western North Carolina, addressing local unions and community allies on September 27, 2011
The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people.— Cesar Chavez
Because we have suffered, and we are not afraid to suffer in order to survive, we are ready to give up everything -- even our lives -- in our struggle for justice.— Cesar Chavez
We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.— Cesar Chavez
When a man or woman, young, or old, takes a place on the picket line for even a day or two, he will never be the same again.— Cesar Chavez
The only thing workers have to bargain with is their skill or their labor. Denied the right to withhold it as a last resort, they become powerless. The strike is therefore not a breakdown of collective bargaining-it is the indispensable cornerstone of that process.— Paul Clark, 1989
If you object to unfair treatment, you're an ingrate. If you seek equity and fair consideration, you're uppity. If you demand union security, you're un-American. If you rebel against repressive management tactics, they will lynch and scalp you. But if you are passive and patient, they will take advantage of both.— Congressman William Clay, Sr., speaking to the AFL-CIO Federation of Government Employees, 1975
The most heroic word in all languages is revolution.—Eugene V. Debs
While there is a lower class I am in it, while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.—Eugene V. Debs
Ruins of striking mine workers' tent city following the 1914 Ludlow Massacre. A militia formed by mining companies, wearing National Guard uniforms with the blessing of the Governor, riddled the tent city with machine gun fire before burning it to the ground. 19 were killed, including 2 women and 11 children, some as young as 3 months old. Almost 200 would be killed in the ensuing Colorado Coalfield Wars. The miners did not achieve their objectives (not immediately, at least) and the only man ever charged in connection with the Ludlow Massacre was union organizer John Lawson, who was framed for murder. Lawson's conviction was eventually overturned.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning.— Frederick Douglass
People might not get all that they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all that they get.—Frederick Douglass
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.—Frederick Douglass
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.—Frederick Douglass
The revolution starts now.—Steve Earle, singer/songwriter
The scaffold has never yet and never will destroy an idea or a movement.—Joseph Ettor, IWW organizer
People might not get all that they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all that they get.—Frederick Douglass
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.—Frederick Douglass
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.—Frederick Douglass
The revolution starts now.—Steve Earle, singer/songwriter
The scaffold has never yet and never will destroy an idea or a movement.—Joseph Ettor, IWW organizer
The death toll from Chicago's Haymarket Massacre in 1886 could never be definitively calculated. A national strike over the 8 hour workday had been called for May 1. At the same time, workers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. had been locked out since February, replaced with scab labor. On the evening of May 3, the McCormick workers surged to confront the scabs and Pinkertons fired into the crowd killing at least 2 and possibly as many as 6. A 'Mass Meeting' in Haymarket Square was called for the following evening by leaders of the 8 hour movement. The meeting was intended to be peaceful, but police prepared for a riot. As the peaceful gathering neared its end, someone tossed a pipe bomb at the police line, killing one officer. The police immediately opened fire and 5 minutes of carnage followed. Bodies littered the streets and at least 12 were killed, possibly dozens more. Police deaths and injuries were primarily from friendly fire, as even the police admitted...anonymously. Eight union organizers were arrested and convicted of murder, 7 receiving death sentences, in what has historically been recognized as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in American history. Many of those convicted were not even on the scene and no efforts were made to determine the origin of the bomb, which some suspect was thrown by Pinkertons. The murder convictions sparked protests around the world. Nowhere in America was the 8 hour day recognized until more than 10 years later and the federal 8 hour day did not come until 1916.
Why did good hard-working people suffer so? Why were men who were willing, able, and anxious to work, denied jobs? Why was there so much unemployment? Why were there rich people who apparently did little but enjoyed life? I hated poverty. I was determined to do something about the bad conditions under which our family and all around us suffered. I have stuck to that purpose for 46 years. I consider in so doing I have been a good American. I have spent my life among the American workers all over this country, slept in their homes, eaten at their tables. They are the majority of the people who have the inalienable right in our view to govern the country.—Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, 1952
What precipitated the big strike in 1912, which is one of the great historical struggles in our country, was a political act on the part of the State. The hours of labor were reduced to 54 hours. You can imagine what they were before. That was only for women and children, but it affected something like 75% of the workers in the mills. On the first pay after the law went into effect, the employers cut the wages proportionately to the cut in-hours and the wages were on the average of $7 and $8 a week at that time, and the highest pay to loom fixers and more highly skilled were getting possibly, $15 and $20. It was a margin between mere subsistence and starvation and so there was a spontaneous strike.—Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, 1962, on the Bread and Roses Strike
It is difficult to go on strike if there is no work in the first place.—Lord George-Brown
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
It is impossible for capitalists and laborers to have common interests.—Samuel Gompers
The man who has his millions will want everything he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day. . . . We do want more, and when it becomes more, we shall still want more. And we shall never cease to demand more until we have received the results of our labor.—Samuel Gompers
Never forget, people DIED for the eight hour workday.—Rebecca Gordon
Really what we would like to see is to take these unions out at the knees so they don't have the resources to fight these battles.--Scott Hagerstrom, Michigan Executive Director of billionaire Koch Brothers front group Americans For Prosperity, February 2011, shortly before Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker ginned up a fiscal "crisis" to do just that.
A strike is an incipient revolution. Many large revolutions have grown out of a small strike.—William Dudley "Big Bill" Haywood
Remember that you are fighting more than your own fight. You are fighting for the entire working class and you must stand together.—William Dudley "Big Bill" Haywood, to the striking mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1912
Workers of the world awaken. Break your chains, demand your rights.
All the wealth you make is taken, by exploiting parasites.
Shall you kneel in deep submission from your cradle to your grave?
Is the height of your ambition to be a good and willing slave?—Joe Hill ("Workers of the World Awaken")
We want a better America, an America that will give its citizens, first of all, a higher and higher standard of living so that no child will cry for food in the midst of plenty.—Sidney Hillman
What precipitated the big strike in 1912, which is one of the great historical struggles in our country, was a political act on the part of the State. The hours of labor were reduced to 54 hours. You can imagine what they were before. That was only for women and children, but it affected something like 75% of the workers in the mills. On the first pay after the law went into effect, the employers cut the wages proportionately to the cut in-hours and the wages were on the average of $7 and $8 a week at that time, and the highest pay to loom fixers and more highly skilled were getting possibly, $15 and $20. It was a margin between mere subsistence and starvation and so there was a spontaneous strike.—Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, 1962, on the Bread and Roses Strike
It is difficult to go on strike if there is no work in the first place.—Lord George-Brown
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
It is impossible for capitalists and laborers to have common interests.—Samuel Gompers
The man who has his millions will want everything he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day. . . . We do want more, and when it becomes more, we shall still want more. And we shall never cease to demand more until we have received the results of our labor.—Samuel Gompers
Never forget, people DIED for the eight hour workday.—Rebecca Gordon
Really what we would like to see is to take these unions out at the knees so they don't have the resources to fight these battles.--Scott Hagerstrom, Michigan Executive Director of billionaire Koch Brothers front group Americans For Prosperity, February 2011, shortly before Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker ginned up a fiscal "crisis" to do just that.
A strike is an incipient revolution. Many large revolutions have grown out of a small strike.—William Dudley "Big Bill" Haywood
Remember that you are fighting more than your own fight. You are fighting for the entire working class and you must stand together.—William Dudley "Big Bill" Haywood, to the striking mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1912
Workers of the world awaken. Break your chains, demand your rights.
All the wealth you make is taken, by exploiting parasites.
Shall you kneel in deep submission from your cradle to your grave?
Is the height of your ambition to be a good and willing slave?—Joe Hill ("Workers of the World Awaken")
We want a better America, an America that will give its citizens, first of all, a higher and higher standard of living so that no child will cry for food in the midst of plenty.—Sidney Hillman
Like the Haymarket Massacre, Milwaukee's 'Bay View Massacre' occurred during the 1886 strikes for an 8 hour work day. The strikes began on May 1. Though peaceful, the crowds grew progressively larger as more and more workers joined the movement. As the marchers neared the Rolling Mills steel factory in the Bay View area of Wisconsin on May 4th, Governor Rusk gave the order to 'shoot to kill'. 7 were killed, including a young child of 13. An official inquiry ended with praise for the 'humane' actions of the militia. Many of the peaceful marchers were indicted for unlawful assembly and many more were fired from their jobs for being 'too radical'.
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Oh! God! That bread should be so dear,
and flesh and blood so cheap!—Thomas Hood
A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.—Thomas Jefferson
The governor can stop a strike any time. If I were the governor I would stop a strike by simply saying, "These men have a grievance and demand redress from you. Come and discuss these questions with the miners on the fair soil of America like intelligent, law-abiding citizens. If you refuse I will close up your mines. I will have the state operate mines for the benefit of the nation." It is not right for public officials to bring scabs and gunmen into any state. I am directly opposed to it myself, but if it is a question of strike or you go into slavery, then I say strike until the last one of us drop into our graves.—Mother Jones, 1913
On their side the workers had only the constitution. The other side had bayonets.—Mother Jones
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.—John F. Kennedy
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, 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.
What good does it do to sit at the counter when you cannot afford a hamburger?-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
We have come too far, -- struggled too long, -- sacrificed too much and have too much left to do, -- to allow that which we have achieved for the good of all to be swept away without a fight. And we have not forgotten how to fight.— Lane Kirkland
The drop of rain maketh a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling.-- Hugh Latimer
Our America is under siege. Everywhere we look labor is being attacked and, to our chagrin, so are our Veterans, elderly and disenfranchised. There should be outrage from one and all. This is OUR America, isn't it? DAMN RIGHT!—Moe Lepore, President Boston Metro Area Local APWU (2003)
Personally, I look forward to continuing the fight for justice and equality on the workroom floor. APWU will never NEVER allow [the] heinous thinking by management to continue without a battle. It's an atrocity which must be and will be stamped out. We are American workers and, most importantly, we are human beings!—Moe Lepore, Boston Metro Area Local APWU (1985)
The political stability of the republic is imperiled. In excess of twelve million wage earning are unemployed. In certain industrial states the percentage of unemployed equals 40 percent of the enrolled workers. Of the remaining 60 percent a large number are employed on a part-time basis, and are the victims of a continuous schedule of wage cutting. Those who are employed, directly or indirectly, must inevitably bear the burden of supporting the millions to whom employment is unavailable.... We are victims of our own national short-sightedness by failure in the halcyon days of prosperity to intelligently plan for the future.—John L. Lewis, 1933
The union miner cannot agree to the acceptance of a wage principle which will permit his annual earnings and his living standards to be determined by the hungriest unfortunates whom the non-union operators can employ.—John L. Lewis
A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.—Thomas Jefferson
The governor can stop a strike any time. If I were the governor I would stop a strike by simply saying, "These men have a grievance and demand redress from you. Come and discuss these questions with the miners on the fair soil of America like intelligent, law-abiding citizens. If you refuse I will close up your mines. I will have the state operate mines for the benefit of the nation." It is not right for public officials to bring scabs and gunmen into any state. I am directly opposed to it myself, but if it is a question of strike or you go into slavery, then I say strike until the last one of us drop into our graves.—Mother Jones, 1913
On their side the workers had only the constitution. The other side had bayonets.—Mother Jones
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.—John F. Kennedy
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, 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.
What good does it do to sit at the counter when you cannot afford a hamburger?-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
We have come too far, -- struggled too long, -- sacrificed too much and have too much left to do, -- to allow that which we have achieved for the good of all to be swept away without a fight. And we have not forgotten how to fight.— Lane Kirkland
The drop of rain maketh a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling.-- Hugh Latimer
Our America is under siege. Everywhere we look labor is being attacked and, to our chagrin, so are our Veterans, elderly and disenfranchised. There should be outrage from one and all. This is OUR America, isn't it? DAMN RIGHT!—Moe Lepore, President Boston Metro Area Local APWU (2003)
Personally, I look forward to continuing the fight for justice and equality on the workroom floor. APWU will never NEVER allow [the] heinous thinking by management to continue without a battle. It's an atrocity which must be and will be stamped out. We are American workers and, most importantly, we are human beings!—Moe Lepore, Boston Metro Area Local APWU (1985)
The political stability of the republic is imperiled. In excess of twelve million wage earning are unemployed. In certain industrial states the percentage of unemployed equals 40 percent of the enrolled workers. Of the remaining 60 percent a large number are employed on a part-time basis, and are the victims of a continuous schedule of wage cutting. Those who are employed, directly or indirectly, must inevitably bear the burden of supporting the millions to whom employment is unavailable.... We are victims of our own national short-sightedness by failure in the halcyon days of prosperity to intelligently plan for the future.—John L. Lewis, 1933
The union miner cannot agree to the acceptance of a wage principle which will permit his annual earnings and his living standards to be determined by the hungriest unfortunates whom the non-union operators can employ.—John L. Lewis
Men with rifles outside of the Chiquola Mill in Honea Path, South Carolina, where 7 workers were killed during the nationwide General Textile Strike of 1934. The Textile workers were ultimately crushed by such tactics. With nearly a million and a half textile workers on strike, nationwide, many were killed and many more injured. But it was specifically the killings at Chiquola Mill that helped persuade the federal government to pass the Wagner Act--or National Labor Relations Act--in 1935, requiring employers to recognize unions and collectively bargain in good faith and the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, which banned child labor and established a federal minimum wage and the concept of overtime pay. Decades later, residents of and workers in Honea Path were still 'discouraged' by employers and authorities from any mention or thought of 'Bloody Thursday' and the entire town was made to pretend it never happened.
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That we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.—Abraham Lincoln
Only a fool fights by the ground rules, that his enemy has laid down for him.—Malcolm X
Never descend to the ways of those above you.-- George Mallaby
It is better to have a right destroyed than to abandon it because of fear.-- Phillip Mann
In unaired rooms, mothers and fathers sew by day and by night. Those in the home sweatshop must work cheaper than those in the factory sweatshops. . . . And the children are called in from play to drive and drudge beside their elders. . . All the year in New York and in other cities you may watch children radiating to and from such pitiful homes. Nearly any hour on the East Side of New York City you can see them -- pallid boy or spindling girl -- their faces dulled, their backs bent under a heavy load of garments piled on head and shoulders, the muscles of the whole frame in a long strain. . . . Is it not a cruel civilization that allows little hearts and little shoulders to strain under these grown-up responsibilities, while in the same city, a pet cur is jeweled and pampered and aired on a fine lady's velvet lap on the beautiful boulevards?—Edwin Markham, poet, in Cosmopolitan magazine, January 1907
Instantly, the noise stopped. The whole room lay in perfect silence. The tire builders stood in long lines, touching each other, perfectly motionless, deafened by the silence.... For the first time in history, American mass-production workers had stopped a conveyor belt and halted the inexorable movement of factory machinery.-- Ruth McKenney, ("Industrial Valley")
Every piece of progressive social legislation passed by Congress in the 20th century bears a union label.—George Meany
We've been robbed long enough. It's time to strike.—slogan of the Minnesota Iron Range miners strike of 1916
One of my favorite jibes is, "I like you. I'll try to protect you when the revolution comes." I've been a little nervous about using it lately.—Sterling Nusbaum, APWU (WV)
If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I'm in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself and I will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.—Barack Obama (as candidate), November 3, 2007
[T]he strike is inherently dangerous to the rich, and to the corporations who have brought this country to her knees, because it is the only defense the ordinary citizen has.—Keith Olbermann, speech at Cornell University, March 29, 2011
We're just honest working men that have been pushed so far and so hard that we can't keep it up any longer.—Frances O'Rourke, 1937 UAW sitdown striker
The only tired I was, was tired of giving in.—Rosa Parks
Concentrated power can be always wielded in the interest of the few and at the expense of the many. Government in its last analysis is this power reduced to a science. Governments never lead; they follow progress. When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a step, but not until then.—Lucy Parsons
The coming change can only come through a revolution, because the possessing class will not allow a peaceful change to take place; still we are willing to work for peace at any price, except at the price of liberty.—Lucy Parsons
Strike not for a few cents more an hour, because the price of living will be raised faster still, but strike for all you earn, be content with nothing less.—Lucy Parsons
A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess.—A. Philip Randolph
Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted.—A. Philip Randolph
At the banquet table of nature, there are no reserved seats. You get what you can take, and you keep what you can hold. If you can't take anything, you won't get anything, and if you can't hold anything, you won't keep anything. And you can't take anything without organization.—A. Philip Randolph
Too Old to Work--Too Young to Die!—Walter Reuther devised slogan in the UAW fight for pension plans
Management has no divine rights.—Walter Reuther
Labor is not fighting for a larger slice of the national pie--labor is fighting for a larger pie.—Walter Reuther
There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even tacitly take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.—Mario Savio
It is better to have struggled and lost than never to have struggled at all.—Pete Seeger, folksinger, songwriter, activist, pacifist, and humanist
Suppose they’re working you so hard it’s just outrageous,
They’re paying you all starvation wages;
You go to the boss, and the boss would yell,
"Before I'd raise your pay I’d see you all in Hell."
Well, he’s puffing a big see-gar and feeling mighty slick,
He thinks he’s got your union licked.
He looks out the window, and what does he see
But a thousand pickets, and they all agree
He’s a bastard - unfair - slave driver -
Bet he beats his own wife.
—Pete Seeger, folksinger, songwriter, activist, pacifist, and humanist, from "Talking Union" (1941)
United we bargain; divided we beg!—SEIU Health Care Workers Union Local 250 button
Just getting by often takes an act of heroism.— Elizabeth Shuler, AFL-CIO (2016)
Together, we leverage the power of our movement to raise standards for all.— Elizabeth Shuler, AFL-CIO (2021)
I knew from experience of the past that this butchering of people was done for the express purpose of defeating the eight-hour movement.—August Spies, testimony following the 1886 Haymarket Massacre
The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.—August Spies, railroaded along with 7 others following the Haymarket Massacre, at the time of his execution
Once, a union job at GM or AT&T was a bridge to success. Now, a nonunion Wal-Mart job is a bridge to nowhere.—Andy Stern, SEIU President
Those machines had kept going as long as we could remember. When we finally pulled the switch and there was some quiet, I finally remembered something... that I was a human being, that I could stop those machines, that I was better than those machines anytime.—Striking machine worker
Life has meaning only in the struggle. Triumph or defeat is in the hands of the Gods... So let us celebrate the struggle!—Swahili Warrior Song
Our cause is a common one. It is war between poverty and wealth. … This moneyed power is fast eating up the substance of the people. We have made war upon it, and we mean to win it. If we can, we will win through the ballot box; if not, then we shall resort to sterner means.—William Sylvis
When armies are mobilized and issues are joined, the man who is sorry over the fact will win.—Lao Tzu (attributed)
It was the spirit of the workers that was dangerous. The tired, gray crowds ebbing and flowing perpetually into the mills had waked and opened their mouths to sing.—reporter Mary Heaton Vorse writing about the 1912 "Bread and Roses" strike
What I've learned is that real change is very, very hard. But I've also learned that change is possible - if you fight for it.--Elizabeth Warren
Only a fool fights by the ground rules, that his enemy has laid down for him.—Malcolm X
Never descend to the ways of those above you.-- George Mallaby
It is better to have a right destroyed than to abandon it because of fear.-- Phillip Mann
In unaired rooms, mothers and fathers sew by day and by night. Those in the home sweatshop must work cheaper than those in the factory sweatshops. . . . And the children are called in from play to drive and drudge beside their elders. . . All the year in New York and in other cities you may watch children radiating to and from such pitiful homes. Nearly any hour on the East Side of New York City you can see them -- pallid boy or spindling girl -- their faces dulled, their backs bent under a heavy load of garments piled on head and shoulders, the muscles of the whole frame in a long strain. . . . Is it not a cruel civilization that allows little hearts and little shoulders to strain under these grown-up responsibilities, while in the same city, a pet cur is jeweled and pampered and aired on a fine lady's velvet lap on the beautiful boulevards?—Edwin Markham, poet, in Cosmopolitan magazine, January 1907
Instantly, the noise stopped. The whole room lay in perfect silence. The tire builders stood in long lines, touching each other, perfectly motionless, deafened by the silence.... For the first time in history, American mass-production workers had stopped a conveyor belt and halted the inexorable movement of factory machinery.-- Ruth McKenney, ("Industrial Valley")
Every piece of progressive social legislation passed by Congress in the 20th century bears a union label.—George Meany
We've been robbed long enough. It's time to strike.—slogan of the Minnesota Iron Range miners strike of 1916
One of my favorite jibes is, "I like you. I'll try to protect you when the revolution comes." I've been a little nervous about using it lately.—Sterling Nusbaum, APWU (WV)
If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I'm in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself and I will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.—Barack Obama (as candidate), November 3, 2007
[T]he strike is inherently dangerous to the rich, and to the corporations who have brought this country to her knees, because it is the only defense the ordinary citizen has.—Keith Olbermann, speech at Cornell University, March 29, 2011
We're just honest working men that have been pushed so far and so hard that we can't keep it up any longer.—Frances O'Rourke, 1937 UAW sitdown striker
The only tired I was, was tired of giving in.—Rosa Parks
Concentrated power can be always wielded in the interest of the few and at the expense of the many. Government in its last analysis is this power reduced to a science. Governments never lead; they follow progress. When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a step, but not until then.—Lucy Parsons
The coming change can only come through a revolution, because the possessing class will not allow a peaceful change to take place; still we are willing to work for peace at any price, except at the price of liberty.—Lucy Parsons
Strike not for a few cents more an hour, because the price of living will be raised faster still, but strike for all you earn, be content with nothing less.—Lucy Parsons
A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess.—A. Philip Randolph
Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted.—A. Philip Randolph
At the banquet table of nature, there are no reserved seats. You get what you can take, and you keep what you can hold. If you can't take anything, you won't get anything, and if you can't hold anything, you won't keep anything. And you can't take anything without organization.—A. Philip Randolph
Too Old to Work--Too Young to Die!—Walter Reuther devised slogan in the UAW fight for pension plans
Management has no divine rights.—Walter Reuther
Labor is not fighting for a larger slice of the national pie--labor is fighting for a larger pie.—Walter Reuther
There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even tacitly take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.—Mario Savio
It is better to have struggled and lost than never to have struggled at all.—Pete Seeger, folksinger, songwriter, activist, pacifist, and humanist
Suppose they’re working you so hard it’s just outrageous,
They’re paying you all starvation wages;
You go to the boss, and the boss would yell,
"Before I'd raise your pay I’d see you all in Hell."
Well, he’s puffing a big see-gar and feeling mighty slick,
He thinks he’s got your union licked.
He looks out the window, and what does he see
But a thousand pickets, and they all agree
He’s a bastard - unfair - slave driver -
Bet he beats his own wife.
—Pete Seeger, folksinger, songwriter, activist, pacifist, and humanist, from "Talking Union" (1941)
United we bargain; divided we beg!—SEIU Health Care Workers Union Local 250 button
Just getting by often takes an act of heroism.— Elizabeth Shuler, AFL-CIO (2016)
Together, we leverage the power of our movement to raise standards for all.— Elizabeth Shuler, AFL-CIO (2021)
I knew from experience of the past that this butchering of people was done for the express purpose of defeating the eight-hour movement.—August Spies, testimony following the 1886 Haymarket Massacre
The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.—August Spies, railroaded along with 7 others following the Haymarket Massacre, at the time of his execution
Once, a union job at GM or AT&T was a bridge to success. Now, a nonunion Wal-Mart job is a bridge to nowhere.—Andy Stern, SEIU President
Those machines had kept going as long as we could remember. When we finally pulled the switch and there was some quiet, I finally remembered something... that I was a human being, that I could stop those machines, that I was better than those machines anytime.—Striking machine worker
Life has meaning only in the struggle. Triumph or defeat is in the hands of the Gods... So let us celebrate the struggle!—Swahili Warrior Song
Our cause is a common one. It is war between poverty and wealth. … This moneyed power is fast eating up the substance of the people. We have made war upon it, and we mean to win it. If we can, we will win through the ballot box; if not, then we shall resort to sterner means.—William Sylvis
When armies are mobilized and issues are joined, the man who is sorry over the fact will win.—Lao Tzu (attributed)
It was the spirit of the workers that was dangerous. The tired, gray crowds ebbing and flowing perpetually into the mills had waked and opened their mouths to sing.—reporter Mary Heaton Vorse writing about the 1912 "Bread and Roses" strike
What I've learned is that real change is very, very hard. But I've also learned that change is possible - if you fight for it.--Elizabeth Warren
The Wisconsin Uprising of 2011, final outcome yet to be determined. These peaceful protests erupted spontaneously after Governor Scott Walker, having ginned up a budget 'crisis' by giving tax cuts and other special deals to his wealthy donors and other business interests, used his newly created budget shortfall as a pretext for stripping public sector unions of their collective bargaining rights and their ability to collect membership dues. Tens of thousands of Wisconsin residents took to the state Capitol in Madison, both inside and out, to protest the transparent union busting efforts, part of a nationwide coordinated Republican campaign to destroy, once and for all, the only leverage working Americans have left in both business and political matters. This is the 'other shoe' following the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling in 2010; Citizens United gave unlimited voice to the very wealthy and, now, the wealthy are using their unlimited resources to ensure that theirs is the ONLY voice. The Wisconsin measure has been challenged in court and, so far, not implemented. Elsewhere in America, Republicans are advancing legislation to overturn minimum wage and child labor laws. Arizona is working on nullification legislation--an unconstitutional attempt to exempt itself from federal laws--and southern states are openly talking about secession and waxing poetic about the 'good old days' of slavery and Jim Crow. The Madison protests have been repeated throughout Wisconsin and in Ohio and Indiana as well. Nationwide solidarity protests were held at all fifty state capitals on February 26. The struggle continues...