Business
often does a good job supporting communities:
the arts, universities, and scientific enterprises...
But that philosophy has rarely reached poor countries.
Even businesses that are enlightened in their
home bases see Africa, Latin America, and parts
of Asia as places to exploit natural resources
or use cheap labor.
-- Jeffrey Sachs |
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You
take my life when you do take the means whereby I
live.
-- William Shakespeare
"Labour
was the first price, the original purchase - money
that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or
by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world
was originally purchased."
-- Adam Smith
*
...180 million kids are engaged in the worst
forms of child labour. Put it all together
and it is not only morally unacceptable, but
politically dangerous.
-- Juan Somavia
*
Decent
work is at the heart of the search for dignity
for the individual, stability for the family
and peace in the community
-- Juan Somavia
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What
we need is political leadership which can give guidance
to the development of global governance. We need business
leadership which goes beyond shareholder value to
understand the needs and fears of other stakeholders
and their communities.
-- Juan Somavia
Nearly
one billion women and men, a third of the world‘s
workforce, are either unemployed or unable to earn
enough to keep themselves out of extreme poverty.
There are 100 million new entrants into the labour
market each year. Up to 90 percent in some regions
are in the informal economy. 180 million kids are
engaged in the worst forms of child labour. Put it
all together and it is not only morally unacceptable,
but politically dangerous
-- Juan Somavia
Labour markets are about people. And people have a
right to be treated with dignity and respect.
-- Juan Somavia
A
key issue in managing globalization is therefore how
we organise the global investmentand labour markets
to meet the needs of flexibility for enterprises,
security for workers and quality for consumers. We
need new proactive policies that focus directly on
how authorities in the public and private sphere can
blend economic and social policies with an enabling
environment for private initiative to create market
opportunities for Decent Work.
-- Juan Somavia
"Without
labor nothing prospers."
-- Sophocles
When
we talk about equal pay for equal work, women in the
workplace are beginning to catch up. If we keep going
at this current rate, we will achieve full equality
in about 475 years. I don't know about you, but I
can't wait that long.
-- Lya Sorano
I
am weary seeing our laboring classes so wretchedly
housed, fed, and clothed, while thousands
of dollars are wasted every year over unsightly
statues. If these great man must have outdoor
memorials, let them be in the form of handsome
blocks of buildings for the poor
-- Elizabeth
Cady Stanton
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No
man can call himself liberal, or radical, or
even a conservative advocate of fair play, if
his work depends in any way on the unpaid or
underpaid labor of women at home, or in the
office.
-- Gloria Steinem
|
Today
I send this message to every emerging global corporation:
"justice; family, community, and union" are the same
in every language and, wherever you go and whatever
you do, a new global labor movement is coming to find
you.
-- Andy Stern, SEIU President
We
can bring to earth a new world from the ashes of the
old because our union transforms us the powerless
into the powerful. And I ask you to join together
in using all that power--all that strength to make
the dreams of all workers and communities around the
world come true.
-- Andy Stern, SEIU President
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*
"I
am also very proud to be a liberal. Why is that
so terrible these days? The liberals were liberators—they
fought slavery, fought for women to have the
right to vote, fought against Hitler, Stalin,
fought to end segregation, fought to end apartheid.
Liberals put an end to child labor and they
gave us the five day work week! What's to be
ashamed of?"
-- Barbra
Streisand
|
What
is economics? A science invented by the upper class
in order to acquire the fruits of the labor of the
underclass.
-- August Strindberg, 1884
When
fewer workers have unions, the standard of living
falls for everyone and the gap between the rich and
poor grows.
-- John Sweeney, 2003
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, November 2004
We
should measure the success of our economy by the breadth
of our Middle Class and the scope of opportunity offered
to the poorest child to climb into that Middle Class.
-- John Sweeney
It
is time that all Americans realized that the place
of labor is side by side with the businessman and
with the farmer, and not one-degree lower.
-- Harry S Truman
In
an industrial society which confuses work and productivity,
the necessity of producing has always been an enemy
of the desire to create.
-- Raoul Vaneigem
"Labor
wants also pride and joy in doing good work, a sense
of making or doing something beautiful or useful -
to be treated with dignity and respect as brother
and sister"
-- Thorstein Veblen
|
We desire peace - and that is why we have never
resorted to physical force. We crave for justice
- and that is why we are so persistent in the
struggle for our rights. We seek freedom of
convictions - and that is why we have never
attempted to enslave man's conscience, nor shall
we ever attempt to do so. We are fighting for
the right of the working people to association
and for the dignity of human labor. We respect
the dignity and the rights of every man and
every nation. The path to a brighter future
of the world leads through honest reconciliation
of the conflicting interests and not through
hatred and bloodshed. To follow that path means
to enhance the moral power of the all-embracing
idea of human solidarity.
-- Lech Walesa
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Labor
in this country is independent and proud. It has not
to ask the patronage of capital, but capital solicits
the aid of labor.
-- Daniel Webster
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A
downtrodden class... will never be able to make
an effective protest until it achieves solidarity.
-- H.G. Wells
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*
While
we are fighting for freedom, we must see, among
other things, that labor is free.
-- Woodrow Wilson |
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*
If
capitalism is fair then unionism must be.
If men have a right to capitalize their ideas
and the resources of their country, then that
implies the right of men to capitalize their
labor.
-- Frank Lloyd
Wright
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*
The
strike, the boycott, the refusal to serve, the
ability to paralyze the functioning of a complex
social structure-these remain potent weapons
against the most fearsome state or corporate
power.
-- Howard
Zinn
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Labor
Quotes
