Killing is just superficial; it’s just the icing on the cake. I mean there’s plenty of repression short of killing. And it’s tough. People lose their jobs, they get blacklisted … There’s all kinds of ways of getting rid of people who are troublemakers from kindergarten up. And organising succeeds when people are willing to face those pressures and overcome them. And it’s hard to know what the secret is; sometimes people do it … For us it’s a picnic; what we call repression, in most of the world would be called a gift. I mean, go to a place like El Salvador and try to organise there; there it’s not a matter of they don’t like you, you end up in a ditch cut to pieces after torture – that’s what it means to organise there: they still do it, they keep coming back. Noam Chomsky, lecture Deterring Democracy, 1992
In the late 19th century there was a major union organization, Knights of Labor, and also a radical populist movement based on farmers. It’s hard to believe, but it was based in Texas, and it was quite radical. They wanted their own banks, their own cooperatives, their own control over sales and commerce. Noam Chomsky
The United States is a business-run society which means that human rights are subordinated to the overwhelming, overriding need of profit for investors. Decisions are placed in the hands of unaccountable private tyrannies. Noam Chomsky, lecture 1995, ‘The War on Unions and Workers’ Rights’, Youtube 2.15.26
Unions have been a leading force – probably the leading force – for democracy and human rights … That’s exactly why such enormous efforts have been undertaken in the United States in a really relentless and self-conscious class war to undermine and destroy them. ibid.
From 1985 to 1992 the United States went from highest labor costs to second lowest in the industrialised world. ibid.
Labor movements have regularly been in the forefront of popular struggles for basic rights including labor rights and democracy. Noam Chomsky, Rickman Godlee Lecture 2011, ‘Contours of Global Order’, Youtube 1.39.23
Decatur, Illinois, that’s an old working-class town in Illinois where the most important labor actions of certainly the last 50 or 60 years have been going on for several years … A final effort by major transnational corporate power to destroy the last remnants of American industrial unionism – they took on the big unions, the UAW … Noam Chomsky, 14 Principles on Which the US was Founded, Youtube 51.42
About 90% of people are insecure about their jobs … About 70% are afraid that if they try to get involved in union organising they’ll be fired. Noam Chomsky, lecture MIT 22nd February 1999, ‘Foundations of World Order’
Unions have been a leading force – probably the leading force – for democracy and human rights; that’s why such enormous efforts have been undertaken in the United States in a really relentless and self-conscious class war to undermine and destroy them. Noam Chomsky, lecture 1996, ‘The Class War’, Youtube 52.41
The Reagan state made it very clear that it would simply not enforce the law, so that was just carte blanche to employers to just carry out criminal actions – it’s a straight criminal conspiracy. ibid.
Profits are just dazzling … The only thing that’s down is wages and benefits and working conditions. ibid.
It’s a fight we knew all too well in Flint, Michigan. For it was here that my uncle and his fellow workers first brought down the mighty corporate interest that dominated their lives. It was the day before New Year’s Eve 1936 and hundreds of men and women took over the GM factories in Flint and occupied them for forty-four days. They were the first union that beat an industrial corporation, and their actions eventually resulted in the creation of a middle class. Michael Moore, Capitalism: A Love Story, 2009
Actually, what Reagan presided over was the wholesale dismantling of our industrial infrastructure. It was done for short-term profits. And to destroy the unions. ibid.
With all their faults, trade unions have done more for humanity than any other organisation of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men. Clarence Darrow
Every advance in this half-century: social security, civil rights, Medicare, aid to education ... one after another – came with the support and leadership of American labor. Jimmy Carter
History is a great teacher. Now everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them. Martin Luther King, 1961
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
Less than a century ago the laborer had no rights, little or no respect, and led a life which was socially submerged and barren ... American industry organized misery into sweatshops and proclaimed the right of capital to act without restraints and without conscience. The inspiring answer to this intolerable and dehumanizing existence was economic organization through trade unions. The worker became determined not to wait for charitable impulses to grow in his employer. He constructed the means by which fairer sharing of the fruits of his toil had to be given to him or the wheels of industry. Martin Luther King
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. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over the nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society. Martin Luther King junior
I consider it important, indeed urgently necessary, for intellectual workers to get together, both to protect their own economic status and, also, generally speaking, to secure their influence in the political field. Albert Einstein
The essence of trade unionism is social uplift. The labor movement has been the haven for the dispossessed, the despised, the neglected, the downtrodden, the poor. A Philip Randolph
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Abraham Lincoln
The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds. Abraham Lincoln
The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people. Cesar Chavez
Our opponents in the agricultural industry are very powerful and farm workers are still weak in money and influence. But we have another kind of power that comes from the justice of our cause. So long as we are willing to sacrifice for that cause, so long as we persist in non-violence and work to spread the message of our struggle, then millions of people around the world will respond from their heart, will support our efforts ... and in the end we will overcome. Cesar Chevez
Once social change begins it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid any more. We have seen the future, and the future is ours. Cesar Chavez
Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and bruised itself. We have been enjoined by the courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, traduced by the press, frowned upon in public opinion, and deceived by politicians. But notwithstanding all this and all these, labor is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun. Eugene V Debs
The strike is the weapon of the oppressed, of men capable of appreciating justice and having the courage to resist wrong and contend for principle. The nation had for its cornerstone a strike, and while arrogant injustice throws down the gauntlet and challenges the right to conflict, strikes will come, come by virtue of irrevocable laws, destined to have a wider sweep and greater power as men advance in intelligence and independence. Eugene V Debs
It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that it have free and independent labor unions. Franklin D Roosevelt
If I went to work in a factory, the first thing I’d do is join a union. Franklin D Roosevelt