Collective Bargaining Quotes

• In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such 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.

  Fighting, Rights, Labor Laws

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• Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.

  Ronald Reagan

  Unions, Lost, Bargaining

  Labor Day Address at Liberty State Park, delivered 1 September 1980, Jersey City, New Jersey

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• Our labor unions are not narrow, self-seeking groups. They have raised wages, shortened hours, and provided supplemental benefits. Through collective bargaining and grievance procedures, they have brought justice and democracy to the shop floor.

  John F. Kennedy

  Self, Justice, Presidential

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• The labor movement was the principal force that transforme­d misery and despair into hope and progress.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Progress, Despair, Movement

  Martin Luther King (Jr.), Michael K. Honey (2011). “All Labor Has Dignity”, p.101, Beacon Press

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• The important role of union organizations must be admitted: their object is the representation of the various categories of workers, their lawful collaboration in the economic advance of society, and the development of the sense of their responsibility for the realization of the common good.

  Pope Paul VI

  Responsibility, Organization, Important

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• Collective bargaining has always been the bedrock of the American labor movement. I hope that you will continue to anchor your movement to this foundation. Free collective bargaining is good for the entire Nation. In my view, it is the only alternative to State regulation of wages and prices - a path which leads far down the grim road of totalitarianism. Those who would destroy or further limit the rights of organized labor - those who would cripple collective bargaining or prevent organization of the unorganized - do a disservice to the cause of democracy.

  John F. Kennedy

  Organization, Rights, Views

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• 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

  Struggle, Skills, Unions

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• Gov. Scott Walker, a Tea Party-tinged Republican, is the advance guard of a new GOP push to dismantle public-sector unions as an electoral force.

  Howard Fineman

  Party, Tea, Unions

  "The Real Political Math In Wisconsin" by Howard Fineman, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 25, 2011.

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• In the steel industry the corporations generally have accepted collective bargaining and negotiated wage agreements with the Committee for Industrial Organization.

  John L. Lewis

  Agreement, Organization, Steel

  Labor and the Nation, delivered 3 September 1937 in Washington D.C.

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• Organizing around a common interest is a fundamental part of democracy. We should no more try to take away the right of individuals to collectively bargain than we should try to take away the right to a secret ballot.

  Michael Bloomberg

  Secret, Democracy, Trying

  "Limit Pay, Not Unions". www.nytimes.com. February 27, 2011.

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• The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Struggle, Government, Survival

  Martin Luther King (Jr.), Michael K. Honey (2011). “All Labor Has Dignity”, p.101, Beacon Press

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• In the heart of the Great Depression, millions of American workers did something they'd never done before: they joined a union. Emboldened by the passage of the Wagner Act, which made collective bargaining easier, unions organized industries across the country, remaking the economy.

  James Surowiecki

  Country, Heart, Done

  "State of the Unions". www.newyorker.com. January 17, 2011.

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• To a right-winger, unions are awful. Why do right-wingers hate unions? Because collective bargaining is the power that a worker has against the corporation. Right-wingers hate that.

  Janeane Garofalo

  Hate, Unions, Corporations

  "Majority Report", June 3, 2005.

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• As I learn more and more about the six-year extension of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, it's obvious to me that NFL owners understood that they were going to get a new deal done at all costs.

  Ron Jaworski

  Football, Agreement, Years

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• All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Government, Realizing, Public Service

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• The question is always 'What is the role of a labor movement?' How much is about collective bargaining, how much is about social change for all workers?

  Andy Stern

  Roles, Movement, Social

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• And some of those people that voted Republican are now going to say, what a mistake I made because I didn't know they were going to take my job away. I didn't know they were going to take collective bargaining away.

  James P. Hoffa

  Jobs, Mistake, People

  "CNN's John King Interviews Hoffa Without Asking About 'Son of a B---hes' Remark". bash.newsbusters.org. September 6, 2011.

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• These are the values inspiring those brave workers in Poland. The values that have inspired other dissidents under communist domination. They remind us that where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.

  Ronald Reagan

  Brave, Unions, Inspired

  Labor Day Address at Liberty State Park, delivered 1 September 1980, Jersey City, New Jersey

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• We need to support new organizing strategies for employees who too often have never had the benefit of collective bargaining, and we have to resist the assault on workers' rights.

  Hillary Clinton

  Rights, Support, Needs

  Source: time.com

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• 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.

  Winston Churchill

  Men, Long, Unions

  Winston Churchill (1950). “Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 and 1948”, London, Cassell

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• The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Government, Organization, Purpose

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• ...So they are trying to do something about it. They are not doing it by seeking charity. They are not begging at the welfare office. They are not, like many of their employers, lobbying the halls of Congress with their gold plated tin cups asking to be paid for not growing crops. They are trying to do it in the way that millions of other Americans have shown is the right way-organization, unionism, collective bargaining.

  Cesar Chavez

  Organization, Office, Trying

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• The market's been soft, .. and I think that's mostly a result of the new provisions in the collective bargaining agreement.

  Andrew Zimbalist

  Thinking, Agreement, Results

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• Collective bargaining isn't a right, it is an expensive entitlement. Once and for all, we are giving the taxpayers a voice in this debate. We put the power back in the hands of the people.

  Scott Walker

  Hands, Voice, People

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• Well, we’re going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill. The first step is we’re going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions, because you use divide and conquer.

  Scott Walker

  Couple, Use, Unions

  "Koch-Tied Group Pushes New Union-Busting Bill in Wisconsin" by Mary Bottari, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 3, 2014.

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