Sunday brunch coffee and quotes......Workers of the World Unite!

[marmar]

"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. Phillip Randolph

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"The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people."

- Cesar Chavez

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"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 Debs

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"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 Jr.

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"Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts."

- Molly Ivins

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"My friends, it is solidarity of labor we want. We do not want to find fault with each other, but to solidify our forces and say to each other: 'We must be together; our masters are joined together and we must do the same thing.'"

- Mother Jones

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"The labor movement means just this: It is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth."

- Wendell Phillips

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"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

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"When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses."

- Shirley Chisholm

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"The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor."

- George Orwell

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"You in the unions do not yet represent all of labor. But I hope some day you will, because I believe that it is through strength, through the fact that people who know what people need are working to make this country a better place for all people, that we will help the world to accept our leadership and understand that, under our form of government and through our way of life, we have something to offer them…"

- Eleanor Roosevelt

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"As it has over the decades, the union movement stands for the fundamental moral values that make America strong: quality education for our children, affordable health care for every person—not just some—an end to poverty, secure pensions and wages that enable families to sustain the middle-class life that has fueled this nation’s prosperity and strength. Union members and other working family activists don’t just vote our moral values—we live them. We fight for them, day in, day out. Our commitment to economic and social justice propels us and everything we do."

- John Sweeney