They used to abuse us actually ... If you stuck together in solidarity you can defeat them. Besides that, I learned that the politicians worked with the coal companies. I found out that the union officials were working with the coal companies. I also found out that the Catholic hierarchy was working with the officials. ibid. old miner
The government is acting as their muscle man. ibid.
We have to fight for our rights. ibid. miner’s wife at meeting
We didn’t give them any resistance whatever. We just lay down in the road. ibid.
It’s a feudal system. ibid. Houston Elmore, UMW organiser
Which side are you on, boys?
Which side are you on? ibid. folk song
Consolidated Coal’s Mannington Mine in Farmington W. Va. was inspected by the Federal Bureau of Mines sixteen times in 1968. Extensions were granted to the company sixteen times. On November 20th 1968 the mine exploded. Four men survived, 78 men were trapped in the mine. ibid. caption
It’s not true that the inhalation and retention of coal dust in the lungs necessarily results in any impairment of the pulmonary function. ibid. Attorney, Bitumous Coal Operators Association, televised address
If a company kills a man, the company gets let off. ibid. miner
Three months after the contract was signed at Brookside, the national coal contract expired. For the first time in UMW history the rank and file has the right to ratify the contract. ibid. caption
July – August 1975: 100,000 strike to protest company abuse of grievance procedures. ibid.
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 Labour is the future of America. John L Lewis
Solidarity is not a matter of sentiment but a fact, cold and impassive as the granite foundations of a skyscraper. If the basic elements, identity of interest, clarity of vision, honesty of intent, and oneness of purpose, or any of these is lacking, all sentimental pleas for solidarity, and all other efforts to achieve it will be barren of results. Eugene V Debs
It is only when there is strong social solidarity and a powerful collective conscience that individuals have a platform on which to express their individualism. Will Hutton, The World We’re In p73
Animals show social solidarity. Christopher Hitchens, interview Divine Impulses
All these conditions cannot be fulfilled by pamphlets and leaflets, but only by the living political school, by the fight and in the fight, in the continuous course of the revolution. Rosa Luxemburg
Only through the conscious action of the working masses in city and country can it be brought to life, only through the people’s highest intellectual maturity and inexhaustible idealism can it be brought safely through all storms and find its way to port. Rosa Luxemburg
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 ’30s. Thank God! W M Jack Anderson, first local president, UAW local 645 TX
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
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. William Clay, 1975
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, re Bread and Roses Strike
Never forget, people DIED for the eight hour workday. Rebecca Gordon
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
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
Personally, I look forward to continuing the fight for justice and equality on the workroom floor. APWU will never – NEVER – allow 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
Never descend to the ways of those above you. George Mallaby
The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings. Albert Schweitzer
The working class owes all honour and respect to the first men who planted the standard of labor solidarity on the hostile frontier of unorganized industry. Ralph Chaplin
Solidarity was the movement that turned the direction of history. Jeane Kirkpatrick
Solidarity was the best thing which happened in the 20th century. Mikheil Saakashvili
Comradeship, dignity, amorosity, love, solidarity, fraternity, friendship, ethics: all these names stand in contrast to the commodified, monetised relations of capitalism, all describe relations developed in struggles against capitalism and which can be seen as anticipating or creating a society beyond capitalism. John Holloway, Crack Capitalism
Union gives strength. Aesop
In Unity there is strength. We can move mountains when we’re united and enjoy life. Without unity we are victims. Stay united. Bill Bailey
If the workers of the world want to win, all they have to do is recognize their own solidarity. They have nothing to do but fold their arms and the world will stop. The workers are more powerful with their hands in their pockets than all the property of the capitalists. Joseph Ettor, IWW organizer
It is always somewhat perplexing and sometimes shocking to hear, from respected unionists, a lack of concern for the struggle of brothers and sisters outside their own backyards. Such failure to bear faith and allegiance to real solidarity is what lies at the heart of labour’s inability to coalesce into the force that some of our greatest leaders have envisioned. We must come to the realization that we are all coworkers, brothers and sisters in the struggle with owners. Donald L Foley, APWU
We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately. Benjamin Franklin
The laboring man ... ought to remember that all who labor are their brothers, and that all women who labor are their sisters, and whenever one class of workingmen or workingwomen is oppressed all other laborers ought to stand by the oppressed class. Robert Ingersoll, essay Eight Hours Must Come 1890
There may be a tomorrow or there may not, but there were and are those moments when we come together and put ourselves beyond the reach of self and acknowledge that we are all one. Michael P Kaehler, Saint Cloud MN Area Local APWU