#unions

This business of petty inconvenience and indignity, of being kept waiting about, of having to do everything at other people’s convenience, is inherent in working-class life. A thousand influences constantly press a working man down into a passive role. He does not act, he is acted upon. He feels himself the slave of mysterious authority and has a firm conviction that ‘they’ will never allow him to do this, that, and the other. Once when I was hop-picking I asked the sweated pickers (they earn something under sixpence an hour) why they did not form a union. I was told immediately that ‘they’ would never allow it. Who were ‘they’? I asked. Nobody seemed to know, but evidently ‘they’ were omnipotent. ↗

— George Orwell

#labour #servility #trade-unions #wage-labour #working-class

As clear as it is important, the death of Detroit is nonetheless a topic avoided. Generally the gradual disintegration of a major metropolis would garner a fair amount of attention, but the scant coverage is hardly surprising. After all, the culprits are not the popular ones. In most circles, condemning taxation, regulation, unionization, welfarism and protectionism is unfashionable. It is necessary to cast aside prevailing notions of political correctness and appreciate that the case of Detroit isn’t an isolated tragedy. ↗

— Dan Greenup

#political-correctness #protectionism #regulations #taxation #unions

Can anything be imagined more abhorrent to every sentiment of generosity and justice, than the law which arms the rich with the legal right to fix, by assize, the wages of the poor? If this is not slavery, we have forgotten its definition. Strike the right of associating for the sale of labor from the privileges of a freeman, and you may as well bind him to a master, or ascribe him to the soil. ↗

— William Cullen Bryant

#justice #labor #rights #unions #imagination

My view is that you still, in order to win from the Labour perspective, have to have a strong alliance with business as well as the unions. You have got to be very much in the centre ground on things like public sector reform. ↗

— Tony Blair

#business #centre #got #ground #labour

I certainly support civil unions. ↗

— Carly Fiorina

#civil #i #support #unions

Many people do not realize that where unions have bargaining rights employers cannot raise wages or improve benefit plans any more than they can reduce them without of the consent of the union. ↗

— Charles E. Wilson

#bargaining #benefit #cannot #consent #employers

For most of the 20th century, we didn't just enjoy economic success in Michigan, we defined it. Our innovators and entrepreneurs created the world's most productive companies, and our unions made sure that productivity led to broad middle class prosperity. ↗

— Jennifer M. Granholm

#broad #century #class #companies #created

What's going on in this country? Unions stand against those trends. We've got to somehow insulate the robust American economy from this global economy that seems to want to devour our standard of living. ↗

— James P. Hoffa

#american #american economy #country #devour #economy

There's an ethic that says: 'You don't run off to the church for the sacraments of salvation, you establish a personal relationship with God. You don't run off to the courts for justice, you settle it yourself. You don't run off to labor unions to sort out your work relations, you can take this job and shove it if you don't like what you're doing.' ↗

— John Shelton Reed

#courts #doing #establish #ethic #god

It is true that they paid much more attention to the trade unions because the trade unions were after all speaking for the rights and conditions of working men and women in their employment. ↗

— Barbara Castle

#attention #because #conditions #employment #men