Unions Quotes

You are claiming that the Soviet authorities began and influenced the existence of the Democratic Party [in Iran]. That is the basis of all your statements. The simplest way to discredit your absurd claim si to tell you about Iran, of which you are apparently ignorant. The people of Iran are oppressed, poverty-stricken, and miserable with hunger and disease. Their death rate is among the highest in the world, and their infant mortality rate threatens Iran with complete extinction. They are ruled without choice by feudalistic landowners, ruthless Khans, and venal industrialists. The peasants are slaves and the workers are paid a few pennies for a twelve hour day--not enough to keep their families in food. I can quote you all the figures you like to support these statements, quote them if necessary from British sources. I can also quote you the figures of wealth which is taken out of Iran yearly by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, of which the British Governemtn is the largest shareholder. 200 million pounds sterling have been taken out of Iran by your Oil company: a hundred times the total amount of Iran's national income and ten thousand times the total national income of the working people of Iran. By such natural resources as oil, Iran is by nature one of the wealthiest countries on earth. That wealth goes to Britain, while Iran remains poverty-ridden and without economic stability at all. It has no wage policies, no real trade unions, few hospitals, no sanitation and drainag ~ James Aldridge

What the Soviet Union was to the ideology of Marxism, the Low-Fat Campaign is to the ideology of nutritionism - its supreme test and, as now is coming clear, its most abject failure. ~ Michael Pollan

Take Canada again: why does Canada have the health-care program it does? Up until the mid-1960s, Canada and the United States had the same capitalist health service: extremely inefficient, tons of bureaucracy, huge administrative costs, millions of people with no insurance coverage―exactly what would be amplified in the United States by Clinton's proposals for "managed competition" [put forward in 1993].21 But in 1962 in Saskatchewan, where the N.D.P. is pretty strong and the unions are pretty strong, they managed to put through a kind of rational health-care program of the sort that every industrialized country in the world has by now, except the United States and South Africa. Well, when Saskatchewan first put through that program, the doctors and the insurance companies and the business community were all screaming―but it worked so well that pretty soon all the other Provinces wanted the same thing too, and within a couple years guaranteed health care had spread over the entire country. And that happened largely because of the New Democratic Party in Canada, which does provide a kind of cover and a framework within which popular organizations like unions, and then later things like the feminist movement, have been able to get together and do things. ~ Noam Chomsky

The fall of the present bureaucratic dictatorship [in the Soviet Union], if it were not replaced by a new socialist power, would thus mean a return to capitalist relations with a catastrophic decline of industry and culture. ~ Leon Trotsky

Man was born to be rich, or to inevitably grow rich, by the use of his faculties: by the union of thought with nature. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is always a joy to meet an American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believes that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

As in mysterious and transcendent union the Divine takes into itself the human in the person of Jesus, and eternity is blended with time; we, trusting Him, and yielding our hearts to Him, receive into our poor lives an incorruptible seed, and for us the soul-satisfying realities that abide forever mingle with and are reached through the shadows that pass away. ~ Alexander MacLaren

China is not only formidable, it is also aggressively building its own economic infrastructure. Just a few years from now, China will rival the U.S. and the European Union in global market power. It already has surpassed us in population. ~ Jo Ann Emerson

The union of men in large masses is indispensable to the development and rapid growth of the higher faculties of men. Cities have always been the fireplaces of civilization whence light and heat radiated out into the dark cold world. ~ Theodore Parker

It [the Euro] is a decisive step towards ever closer political and institutional union in Europe. Above all, it is political. ~ Carlo Azeglio Ciampi

It does not seem to me that the steps which would be needed to make Britain - and others - more comfortable in their relationship in the European Union are inherently so outlandish or unreasonable. ~ David Cameron

Colombians! My last wish is for the happiness of the patria. If my death contributes to the end of partisanship and the consolidation of the union, I shall be lowered in peace into my grave. ~ Simon Bolivar

A lot of unions are doing the same thing on the left that the NRA is doing on the right. ~ Eric Bolling

Happy hour is slightly different in the Soviet Union. There are no ice cubes or orange-peel twists in the vodka. Also, it lasts all day. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

Today in America, unions have a secure place in our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice. I have no use for those - regardless of their political party - who hold some vain and foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when organized labor was huddled, almost as a hapless mass. Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

It seems a stray bullet actually pierced the testicle of a Union soldier and lodged itself in the ovaries of a woman standing approximately 100 ft. away. She's alright, the baby's doing fine ... ofcourse the soldier's a little pissed off ... ~ Tom Waits

A leader has to know how the system functions - not just the system of government but the whole social and economic system, including business, the unions, and the universities. ~ Jean Chretien

We then came to the Soviet Union. One day we were walking and carrying our banner and distributing a few leaflets in Russian to people, and we met two women on the road. ~ Satish Kumar

It's not about the budget; it's about the power ... So will the attack on unions succeed? I don't know. But anyone who cares about retaining government of the people by the people should hope that it doesn't. ~ Paul Krugman

Equality is the heart and essence of democracy, freedom, and justice, equality of opportunity in industry, in labor unions, schools and colleges, government, politics, and before the law. There must be no dual standards of justice, no dual rights, privileges, duties, or responsibilities of citizenship. No dual forms of freedom. ~ A. Philip Randolph

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.

As a child I perceived violence as a sort of natural law. In the totalitarian Soviet Union, oppression held everything together. It was the sinister energy of our country. ~ Vladimir Sorokin

Why doesn't anyone address the substantive question of why other states blatantly interfere in Israel's internal affairs? Israel does not meddle in the affairs of other states in a similar way, so why do other countries feel entitled to do this to Israel? These actions violate Israeli sovereignty and I expect European Union member states to act differently. ~ Ayelet Shaked

Today, the European Union is busy transferring aid. If they can build infrastructure in Spain, roads, highways ... why do they refuse to use the same aid to build the same infrastructure in our countries? ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Unions are susceptible to the same ills that befall all human societies. ~ Tony Kushner

I've spent quality time in the aerospace community, with my service on two presidential commissions, but at heart, I'm an academic. Being an academic means I don't wield power over person, place or thing. I don't command armies; I don't lead labor unions. All I have is the power of thought. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Many of the lower middle class are members of labor unions, churches, bowling clubs, fraternal, service, and nationality organizations. They are organizations and people that must be worked
with as one would work with any other part of our populations - with respect, understanding, and sympathy. ~ Saul Alinsky

People with banking experience haven't all flocked to the biggest banks; community banks and regional banks, along with smaller trading houses and credit unions, have some very talented people. ~ Elizabeth Warren

We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions. ~ Lech Walesa

In spite of the roaring of the young lions at the Union, and the screaming of the rabbits in the home of the vivisect, in spite of Keble College, and the tramways, and the sporting prints, Oxford still remains the most beautiful thing in England, and nowhere else are life and art so exquisitely blended, so perfectly made one. ~ Oscar Wilde

My father was a director, and he used to always tell me, "You should be an actress." When I was 17, he gave me a job so that I'd be in the union. ~ Katey Sagal

The air, soil and water cumulatively degrade; the climates and oceans destabilize; species become extinct at a spasm rate across continents; pollution cycles and volumes increase to endanger life-systems at all levels in cascade effects; a rising half of the world is destitute as inequality multiplies; the global food system produces more and more disabling and contaminated junk food without nutritional value; non-contagious diseases multiply to the world's biggest killer with only symptom cures; the vocational future of the next generation collapses across the world while their bank debts rise; the global financial system has ceased to function for productive investment in life-goods; collective-interest agencies of governments and unions are stripped while for-profit state subsidies multiply; police state laws and methods advance while belligerent wars for corporate resources increase; the media are corporate ad vehicles and the academy is increasingly reduced to corporate functions; public sectors and services are non-stop defunded and privatized as tax evasion and transnational corporate funding and service by governments rise at the same time at every level. ~ John McMurtry

The fall of the Berlin Wall really demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that there was a bad system, and what subsequently happened in the Soviet Union, that that system was a failure. ~ Milton Friedman

I've commissioned an adaptation of 'The Jungle', by Upton Sinclair, a story of a young immigrant from Lithuania to the meat-packing industry of Chicago in 1904, and the rise of the unions in America. ~ David Schwimmer

It has been said, and only half in jest, that a tough, professionally led union is a great force for improving management performance. It forces the manager to think about what he is doing and to be able to explain his actions and behavior. ~ Peter Drucker

I'm a firm believer in the monetary union. ~ Wolfgang Schauble

Gorbachev's stance contrasts admirably with the policy of the sainted Abraham Lincoln, who used massive force and mass murder to force the seceding Southern states to remain in the Union. ~ Murray Rothbard

By May, 1st, 1937, there should not be one single church left within the borders of Soviet Russia, and the idea of God will have been banished from the Soviet Union as a remnant of the Middle Ages, which has been used for the purpose of oppressing the working classes. ~ Joseph Stalin

There is no future for the people of Europe other than in union. ~ Jean Monnet

Kosovo's destiny is clearly to join the European Union at some point. ~ Emma Bonino

It is federal, because it is the government of States united in a political union, in contradistinction to a government of individuals, that is, by what is usually called, a social compact. To express it more concisely, it is federal and not national because it is the government of a community of States, and not the government of a single State or Nation. ~ John C. Calhoun

In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy. ~ Fran Lebowitz

And the success of the union movement, historically, has always been to benefit all working men and women - not just people who belong to the union. ~ Warren Beatty

This much freedom leaves you on your own. More Americans than ever before live alone, but even a family can exist in isolation, just managing to survive in the shadow of a huge military base without a soul to lend a hand. A shiny new community can spring up overnight miles from anywhere, then fade away just as fast. An old city can lose its industrial foundation and two-thirds of its people, while all its mainstays - churches, government, businesses, charities, unions - fall like building flats in a strong wind, hardly making a sound. ~ George Packer

Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. ~ John Dickinson

Practicality continues to be a challenge for me - it's at odds with being an artist. I actually had a career on stage in New York - not a brilliant career or I'd still be doing it - but I got enough work to keep my agent and my union health insurance. ~ Debra Dean

Reagan bankrupted the Soviet Union by increasing armaments. ~ Norman Mailer

The wedding took place in Vermont, where they have legalized gay civil unions, and I married a woman. ~ Craig Ferguson

I live to hold communion With all that is divine, To feel there is a union Twixt Natures heart and mine. ~ George Linnaeus Banks

Tens of thousands of North Korean women have been sold to Chinese men. By some estimates, three quarters of the roughly 100,000 North Korean refugees living in China are women and more than half of them live in arranged unions with Chinese men. ~ Barbara Demick

Public employee unions are hardly the only group involved in bare-knuckles politics. Businesses lobby fiercely, and executives make hefty campaign donations. ~ Charles Duhigg

The moral panic about supposedly unpatriotic educators was driven by international war hysteria combined with agitation over the growing domestic political strength of teachers unions. In 1917 and 1918, Congress passed the Espionage and Sedition Acts, which sought to ban public speech and actions "disloyal" to the United States military and government, especially among socialists, communists, pacifists, immigrants, and other groups perceived as affiliated with European leftism. More than any other force, the American Legion, a veterans' organization, pushed this ethos of unquestioning patriotism onto the nation's public schools. The Legion was influential: 16 U.S. senators and 130 congressmen identified as members. It promoted the idea that the Communist Party in Moscow actively recruited American teachers in order to enlist them in brainwashing the nation's youth. The Legion saw all left-of-center political activity as unacceptably anti-American. ~ Dana Goldstein

The breakup of the Soviet Union is a national tragedy on an enormous scale only the elites and nationalists of the republics gained. ~ Vladimir Putin

We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. Founder of the Republican Party. ~ Barack Obama

The unions need to be taken on. British Airways is massively over-staffed and has got to get its costs down ... The problem for [chief executive] Willie Walsh is that the board of BA has no spine, no balls and no vision. ~ Michael O'Leary

Much is being said about peace; and no man desires peace more ardently than I. Still I am yet unprepared to give up the Union fora peace which, so achieved, could not be of much duration. ~ Abraham Lincoln

They can say that abortion is alright. They can vote to sustain gay marriage. And that will take western civilization, indeed other nations because people look to our country as one nation as under God and whenever we legislate sin and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don't know better, we are leading them astray and it's wrong. ~ Katherine Harris

I look at the great poets of the Soviet Union, like Anna Akhmatova, who endured far worse then anything we've seen or hopefully that we will ever see. If they could keep writing and keep a voice alive, keep people hopeful through their poetry, then I would be ashamed to stop and to give in. It would be really self-indulgent, unacceptable, and inexcusable to walk away from it. ~ Sara Paretsky

The Financial Times is pro-British membership of the European Union. We have taken that position for decades. But we are not starry-eyed about the European Union. And we do not believe and have not believed for at least 10 years that Britain should be part of the euro. ~ Lionel Barber

The labor unions shall have a square deal, and the corporations shall have a square deal, and in addition, all private citizens shall have a square deal. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

[The GOP] must decide soon where they stand on the issue of socialized medicine. President Clinton threw down the gauntlet in his State of the Union address, when he proposed guaranteeing health insurance for at least half of the 10 million American children who have none. ~ Tony Snow

Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter. ~ T. S. Eliot

I'm a great supporter of the European Union. I didn't support entry to the Euro, not because I'm against it in principle but because I didn't think it was economically right for Britain. But that doesn't make me any less pro-European. ~ Gordon Brown

There were people who believed their opportunities to live a fulfilled life were hampered by the number of Asians in England, by the existance of a royal family, by the volume of traffic that passed by their house, by the malice of trade unions, by the power of callous employers, by the refusal of the health service to take their condition seriously, by communism, by capitalism, by atheism, by anything, in fact, but their own futile, weak-minded failure to get a fucking grip. ~ Stephen Fry

You oil field workers, come and listen to me I'm goin' to tell you a story about old John D. That company union made a fool out of me. That company union don't charge no dues It leaves you a-singing them Rockefeller blues. That company union made a fool out of me. Takes that good ole C.I.O., boys To keep that oil a-rollin', rollin' over the sea. Takes that good ole C.I.O., boys To keep that oil a-rollin' over the sea. ~ Woody Guthrie

The only way of full knowledge lies in the act of love; this act transcends thought, it transcends words. It is the daring plunge into the experience of union. ~ Erich Fromm

In
the creation of the federal government, the states exercised the
highest act of sovereignty, and they may, if they please, repeat the
proof of their sovereignty, by its annihilation. But the union possesses
no innate sovereignty, like the states; it was not self-constitute d; it
is conventional, and of course subordinate to the sovereignties by
which it was formed. ~ John Taylor

There's a direct relationship between how difficult it is to send a message and how strongly it is received. ~ Howard Rheingold

The constantly recurring question must be: What shall we unite with and from what shall we separate? The question of coexistence does not enter here, but the question of union and fellowship does. The wheat grows in the same field as the tares, but shall the two cross-pollinate? The sheep graze near the goats, but shall they seek to interbreed? The unjust and the just enjoy the same rain and sunshine, but shall they forget their deep moral differences and intermarry? ... The Spirit-illuminated church will have none of this ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

Faith is the union of God and the soul. ~ John Of The Cross

We need to take on the teachers' union once and for all. ~ Chris Christie

Organized labor is organized to take control of an asset away from its rightful owners without paying for it. Organized labor is organization of property by those who don't own it. Organized labor, by driving up the costs of production through coercive means, destroys industries. Organized labor is piracy without the boats and eye patches. Why would anybody want to celebrate organized labor? ~ Douglas Wilson

In a democracy, in a functioning democracy, what would be happening is that popular organizations, unions, political groupings, others would be developing their programs, putting them forth, insisting that their representatives implement those programs. ~ Noam Chomsky

Did you folks see President Bush's State of the Union Address? How about that surprise announcement? Howard Dean has been captured and he's in the hands of interrogators. ~ David Letterman

A lot of people [are] saying civil union," Faried told KDVR. "I don't like it being called that because I can get married to a female and it can be called a marriage. Why can't a female be married to a female and male be married to a male and it be called a marriage? You still have the same thing, same love and happiness. ~ Kenneth Faried

The fruits of this profound union with Jesus are marvelous: our whole being is transformed by the grace of the Holy Spirit: soul, intelligence, will, affections and even the body, because we are united in body and spirit. ~ Pope Francis

Art supplies constantly to contemplation what nature seldom affords in concrete experience - the union of life and peace. ~ George Santayana

Americans have been dumbed down to the point where more people watching 'American Idol' than listen to the state of the union address. And that's too bad. I'm not trying to take any bread out of the mouth of Simon Cowell, but if the president is speaking to the people of the United States, and people are going to watch 'American Idol,' that's sad. ~ Henry Rollins

You can't do it unless you organize. ~ Samuel Gompers

The unions are the worst thing that ever happened to education because it's not a meritocracy. It turns into a bureaucracy, which is exactly what has happened. The teachers can't teach and administrators run the place and nobody can be fired. It's terrible. ~ Steve Jobs

The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth, and one of the shortest lived. ~ Bernard DeVoto

James Watt was equally distinguished as a natural philosopher and chemist; his inventions demonstrate his profound knowledge of those sciences, and that peculiar characteristic of genius - the union of them for practical application. ~ Humphry Davy

Well, I think the way to go is civil unions. But I do think when you talk about the Republican Party and the debates that are going on within the Republican Party on a number of issues, what I'm hoping is that they will get to a point where they will work with us on moving forward with this economy. ~ Amy Klobuchar

In the 1960s, I would have considered China with its CPC an ideologically more dynamic country than the Soviet Union. But the Soviet Union was strategically more threatening. ~ Henry A. Kissinger

We know what unions have done for other people. We have seen it and we have studied and we have cherished the idea of unionism. We have seen the history and development of unions in this country and we tell the growers that we want nothing more, but that we want our own union and we are going to fight for it as long as it takes. ~ Cesar Chavez

As to industrial conditions, however, Babbitt had thought a great deal, and his opinions may be coordinated as follows: A good labor union is of value because it keeps out radical unions, which would destroy property. No one ought to be forced to belong to a union, however. All labor agitators who try to force men to join a union should be hanged. In fact, just between ourselves, there oughtn't to be any unions allowed at all; and as it's the best way of fighting the unions, every business man ought to belong to an employers'-association and to the Chamber of Commerce. In union there is strength. So any selfish hog who doesn't join the Chamber of Commerce ought to be forced to. ~ Sinclair Lewis

It's time to resist efforts of the American Civil Liberties Union who have conducted a religious lobotomy on this country, seeking to strip it of any vestige of religious influence. ~ Cal Thomas

Do Obama and Boxer realize they are on the wrong side of a tsunami of voter discontent with a government run by and for the public employee unions? ~ Mickey Kaus

Labor unions are the worst thing that ever struck the earth because they take away a man's independence. ~ Henry Ford

Oregon is outflanking California as the most left wing state in the union. ~ Bill O'Reilly

The ultimate goal of the whole policy of peaceful co-existence was to make progress on the basic goal laid down by Lenin of a world largely composed of socialist, communist states, in which the Soviet Union would be the prime mover. ~ Paul Nitze

The real issue is not if a crossing is put in, but when. It would be negligent on the part of Union Pacific and the California Public Utilities Commission to not address the problem. ~ Dean Smith

At a time when the American family is threatened as never before, redefining it away from the union of one man and one woman only promises to weaken it as a child-rearing, values-conveying institution. ~ Marco Rubio

The countries that have risen and separated out as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union are, on the whole, following freer economic policies. Most of these states have freer government and less restrictions on trade. ~ Milton Friedman

In certain tantric rituals the candidate is first beaten by his guru, hashish forced down him, and he is taken at midnight to a dark cemetery for sacred sexual intercourse. Thus he achieves union with his god. ~ Peter J. Carroll

It is entirely possible to build the elements of the new system molecularly within the old. In the cooperatives, the credit unions, the peer-networks, the unmanaged enterprises and the parallel, subcultural economies, these elements already exist ~ Paul Mason

Faced with such insecurity, labor unions seek a solution in demands for higher wages, shorter hours, pensions, and such things. But this approach takes monopolistic capitalism for granted, and accepts the unnatural division between property and responsibility as permanent. A much more radical solution is apt to come, and this may take either of two forms. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

Right now, the technological world plus God or spirituality is evolving. I think America has become a little bit too corrupt, government's a little too corrupt, too greedy. Many corporations are too greedy. The labor unions are too greedy. That effects charities and religious organizations. I just think it's greed. That's why, in 1985, I had to figure out how to give before I received. The more I focus on giving, for less and less, the more and more I make. ~ Robert Kiyosaki

The fruit of the Spirit is fundamentally relational. Rather than originating with us, it flows to us from our union with Christ, and it flows beyond us to bring us into fellowship with others. The secret of this flow - and our unity with God and others - is humility. ~ Jerry Bridges

It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches. It corrupts politics, sports, literature, art, labor unions and so on. But business also corrupts and undermines monolithic totalitarianism. Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment. ~ Eric Hoffer