Quotes about worker
page 11

“Communism is all about breaking down nationalism, about uniting workers around the world, and North Korea has always been about the opposite, it’s been about racial purity and pride, so remember North Korea was isolated even inside the old east-block, even inside the Soviet block.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Interview with Park Jin Keol (March 2012)

World, Communication

“However, the question who built Taj Mahal no longer remains a mystery. Surely it was not built by Shah Jahan but by architects, calligraphers, masons, stone-cutters, and metal workers and ordinary laborers who built it and made it a symbol of creative mind of the Indian society.”

Mubarak Ali (1941) Historian, activist, scholar

In Search of History, Chapter: Conspiring against Taj Mahal, p. 47
History, Architecture

Question

“It was a hard decision (to close casinos in Macau for two weeks after a hotel worker was infected by COVID-19), but we (Government of Macau) must make it for the health of Macau residents. Macau can still withstand economic losses.”

Ho Iat Seng (1957) Chief Executive of Macau

Ho Iat Seng (2020) cited in " Coronavirus: casinos to close in Macau for at least two weeks after hotel worker infected https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3048904/coronavirus-casinos-close-macau-least-two-weeks" on South China Morning Post, 4 February 2020.

Health, Making love, Decision, Loss

“I think that's what we were referencing when we talked about easy movement [of workers after the UK has left the EU's single market] - less bureaucracy; it's good for migrants but it's also good for business”

Diane Abbott (1953) British Labour Party politician

Diane Abbott: Listen to CBI and NHS' on Brexit migration https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42384346 BBC News (17 December 2017) 2010s

Business, Thinking

“At the very point when a privileged fraction of the working class seems to be in a position to acquire multiple skills, to achieve workplace autonomy and continually widen their capacities for action - all of which are things that were ideals of the worker self-management currents within the labour movement - the meaning of this ideal is thus radically altered by the conditions in which it seems destined to be fulfilled. It is not the working class which is achieving these possibilities of self-organization and increasing technological power; it is a small core of privileged workers who are integrated into new-style enterprises at the expense of a mass of people who are marginalized and whose job security is destroyed -people shunted from one form of occasional, unrewarding and uninteresting employment to another, who are often reduced to competing for the privilege of selling personal services (including shoe-shining and house-cleaning) to those who retain a secure income.”

André Gorz (1923–2007) austrian philosopher

pp, 70-71 https://books.google.com/books?id=WbpvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA70 Critique of Economic Reason, 1988

People, Shoe, Housing, Personality

“The image of the enterprise as a place where employees can achieve personal fulfilment is therefore an essentially ideological invention. It conceals the real transformations that have taken place, namely that enterprises are replacing labour by machines, producing more and better with a decreasing percentage of the workforce previously employed, and offering privileges to a chosen elite of workers, which are accompanied by unemployment, precarious employment, de-skilling and lack of job security for the majority. The advance of technology has thus resulted in the segmentation and disintegration of the working class. An elite has been won over to collaboration with capital in the name of work ethic; the great mass of workers have become marginalized or lost their job security and serve as a reserve army for industry which wishes to be able to adjust its workforce rapidly according to fluctuations in demand.”

André Gorz (1923–2007) austrian philosopher

p. 66 https://books.google.com/books?id=WbpvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA66 Critique of Economic Reason, 1988

Personality

““Violence” was a euphemism for a threat to the ruling order and its illusion of social peace, with which the class struggle, the brutality of patriarchy, and the murderousness of colonialism are hidden. The newspapers did not talk about violence when cops killed strikers, when landlords evicted families, or when poor people died of hunger. They talked about violence when workers went on strike, when tenants stopped paying rent, when street vendors refused to surrender their wares to the cops.”

Peter Gelderloos (1982) American anarchist

Source: "The Failure of Nonviolence" (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence, Chapter 1. Violence Doesn't Exist

Hunger, People, Family, Peace

“Marx's error, Hitler believed, had been to foster class war instead of national unity - to set workers against industrialists instead of conscripting both groups into a corporatist order.”

Daniel Hannan (1971) British politician

2010s, Nazism (2014)

War, Error

“When workers make the decisions, you stop outsourcing jobs, you stop the wealth gap, you stop inequality.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

Global Capitalism Monthly Update (12 March 2014)

Making love, Decision, Wealth

“Now, do you think workers would vote to unequally redistribute profits? Of course not. They would vote for equitable distribution.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

Global Capitalism Monthly Update (12 March 2014)

Thinking

“If you don’t want inequality, don’t unequally redistribute it in the first place: Workers must equitably distribute all profit equally to all workers. After all, profit is merely surplus value of labor, and that belongs to all workers.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

Global Capitalism Monthly Update (12 March 2014)

“A corporation has a tiny minority of people at the top, executives and the board of directors, who make all the decisions. Workers are forced to live with their decisions, yet have no voice in such decisions. I say it is time to bring democracy to the workplace.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

Global Capitalism Monthly Update (12 March 2014)

People, Making love, Democracy, Decision

“A worker-coop based economy—where workers democratically run enterprises, deciding what, how and where to produce, and what to do with any profits—could, and likely would, put social needs and goals (like proper preparation for pandemics) ahead of profits. Workers are the majority in all capitalist societies; their interests are those of the majority. Employers are always a small minority; theirs are the "special interests" of that minority. Capitalism gives that minority the position, profits and power to determine how the society as a whole lives or dies. That's why all employees now wonder and worry about how long our jobs, incomes, homes and bank accounts will last—if we still have them. A minority (employers) decides all those questions and excludes the majority (employees) from making those decisions, even though that majority must live with their results. Of course, the top priority now is to put public health and safety first. To that end, employees across the country are now thinking about refusing to obey orders to work in unsafe job conditions. U.S. capitalism has thus placed a general strike on today's social agenda. A close second priority is to learn from capitalism's failure in the face of the pandemic. We must not suffer such a dangerous and unnecessary social breakdown again. Thus system change is now also moving onto today's social agenda.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

COVID-19 and the Failures of Capitalism (2020)

Health, Making love, Home, Failure

“Workers must control the workplace: If workers made the decisions, do you really think they would vote to outsource their own jobs to China? Of course not. Would workers vote to pollute their own air and water and poison their own kids just to make an extra nickel in profit? Of course not.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

Global Capitalism Monthly Update (12 March 2014)

Making love, Thinking, Decision, Water

“Be present with your co-workers and staff.”

Masaaki Imai (1930) Japanese business theorist and consultant

“Standards should not be forced down from above but rather set by the production workers themselves.”

Taiichi Ohno (1912–1990) Japanese businessman and engineer

“Something is wrong if workers do not look around each day, find things that are tedious or boring, and then rewrite the procedures. Even last month’s manual should be out of date.”

Taiichi Ohno (1912–1990) Japanese businessman and engineer

“The crisis of production today is the crisis of the antagonism between manual and intellectual labor. The problem of modern philosophy from Descartes in the sixteenth century to Stalinism in 1950 is the problem of the division of labor between the intellectuals and the workers.”

C. L. R. James (1901–1989) Trinidadian writer

State Capitalism and World Revolution (1950)

Problem

“The labor ministry's position is to protect the right of workers to strike.”

Hsu Ming-chun Taiwanese politician

Hsu Ming-chun (2019) cited in " Transportation, labor ministers divided on issue of strike notice https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3730012" on Taiwan News, 23 June 2019.

“Thus, the willingness of workers in recent years to trade off smaller increases in wages for greater job security seems to be reasonably well documented.”

Alan Greenspan (1926) 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the United States

Testimony Before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate February 26, 1997 https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/hh/1997/february/testimony.htm 1990s

“The proletarian army must be exclusively composed of persons belonging to the working class, of persons who do not expoloit labour and who are directly interested in the victory of the workers' revolution.”

Nikolai Bukharin (1888–1938) Soviet politician

62. The Need For The Red Army; It's Class Composition
ABC's of Communism

Victory, Personality

“History echoes. We mustn't ignore the past, because we're constantly reliving it. Just like the seasons that these farm workers organize their lives around, it's all a big cycle.”

Luis Valdez (1940) American film director

On the cyclical nature of American history in “A Japanese Family Relies on Mexican Neighbors in Luis Valdez's Valley of the Heart” https://www.theatermania.com/los-angeles-theater/news/a-japanese-family-relies-on-mexican-neighbors-to-s_86969.html in Theater Mania (2018 Nov 7)

History, Past, Season

“As a right-wing conservative and founding member of the Freedom Caucus, I never expected that the co-worker I would work closest, and best, with at the White House would be a "globalist."”

Mick Mulvaney (1967) Director of the Office of Management and Budget

Gary Cohn is one of the smartest people I’ve ever worked with. Having the chance to collaborate with him will remain one of the highlights of my career in public service.” 6 March 2018 https://twitter.com/OMBPress/status/971171732454129664

Freedom, Housing

“I don’t think most Americans realize that the way we raise animals is such a betrayal of the heritage of our grandparents. I don’t think they realize that … these big companies like Smithfield and Cargill and others have our American farmers now living like sharecroppers in constant debt, forced to follow their rules. I’ve watched the suffering in North Carolina of minority communities who live around Cafos and can no longer breathe their air … and I’ve seen workers in the meatpacking plants and how dangerous those plants are. Everybody is losing in this system – except for the massive corporations that have taken over the American food system.”

Cory Booker (1969) 35th Class 2 senator for New Jersey in U.S. Congress

'A savagely broken food system': Cory Booker wants radical reform ... now https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/15/a-savagely-broken-food-system-cory-booker-wants-radical-reform-now. The Guardian, September, 15 2020 2020

Food, Way, Communication, Thinking

“If we assume the viewpoint claimed as his own by Lenin and we fear the influence of intellectuals in the proletarian movement, we can conceive of no greater danger to the Russian party than Lenin's plan of organization. Nothing will more surely enslave a young labor movement to an intellectual elite hungry for power than this bureaucratic straightjacket, which will immobilize the movement and turn it into an automaton manipulated by a Central Committee. On the other hand there is no more effective guarantee against opportunist intrigue and personal ambition than the independent revolutionary action of the proletariat, as a result of which the workers acquire the sense of political responsibility and self-reliance.”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

Leninism or Marxism? (1904)

Fear, Sense, Personality, Self-confidence

“The publicly propagandized aims of communism are vaguely liberal. One can read the Daily Worker every day for a year without finding any clear exegesis of Communist principle. Like Hitler, Communists, outside their own ranks, promise all things to most men, denouncing only ‘monopolists’ ‘imperialists’ (and failing to provide a glossary for their meaning of these terms), opposing race discrimination, child labor, etc.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Source: "Let the Record Speak" 1939, “The Truth about Communism” https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015051180423&view=1up&seq=5 (1948), p. 10

Men, Communication, Reading

“It is intolerable that a whole race should be indicted and banned— each individual, good, bad and indifferent, lumped into one category—as the Jews are in Germany. It is intolerable that we should accept the principle that there is a permanent, irreconcilable and even necessary hostility between workers and the men who employ them—as is positively implied in this country, in the National Labor Relations Act.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

As quoted in "The best quotes from Ralph Klein’s colourful public life" http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-best-quotes-from-ralph-kleins-colourful-public-life/article10577310/, The Globe and Mail p. 95 Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)

Men, Hostility, Bad luck, Relation ships

“I am confident that the enactment of the right bill next year will in due course increase our gross national product by several times the amount of taxes actually cut. Profit margins will be improved and both the incentive to invest and the supply of internal funds for investment will be increased. There will be new interest in taking risks, in increasing productivity, in creating new jobs and new products for long-term economic growth. Other national problems, moreover, will be aided by full employment. It will encourage the location of new plants in areas of labor surplus and provide new jobs for workers that we are retraining and facilitate the adjustment which will be necessary under our new trade expansion bill and reduce a number of government expenditures.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Confidence, Problem, Time, Self-confidence

“We live in a country afflicted by a senile and selfish capitalist system...where families are homeless, sick people unattended, children untaught whilst building workers, nurses and teachers are unemployed”

Neil Kinnock (1942) British politician

Source: ‘Introduction’, in Why Vote Labour? (1979), p. 2, quoted in Tudor Jones, ‘Neil Kinnock's socialist journey’, Contemporary Record, Volume 8, Issue 3 (1994), p. pp. 568–569

Children, People, Family, Affliction

“We have a bunch of yahoos out in the front of Queen’s Park sitting there protesting that the place isn’t open, as they are breaking the law. And putting everyone in jeopardy, putting themselves in jeopardy, putting workers in jeopardy and god forbid one of them ends up in the hospital down the street.”

Doug Ford (1964) 26th Premier of Ontario

On anti-lockdown protestors in Queen's Park https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/a-bunch-of-yahoos-ont-premier-says-of-people-protesting-covid-19-emergency-measures-1.4911861 (25 April 2020) 2020

God, Law

“Legislatures have rewritten basic business laws, some whose principles date back thousands of years. Too often the goal has been to thwart competition, artificially inflate prices, hold down wages by decimating unions, reduce worker benefits and... restrict or bar access to the courts by those aggrieved.”

David Cay Johnston (1948) Investigative journalist and author

The Fine Print (2013)

Law, Business

“We should keep in mind that in this country there is a general discrimination against minorities and the poorest workers. It is a widespread mentality which can also affect this tragedy. The fact that the rich are better off than the poor, having saved their own land, is a serious matter which the government must address.”

Max Rodrigues French fencer

Pakistan: some Christians denied aid unless they convert to Islam https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=7460 (September 6, 2010)

Country

“Old gods sometimes do that in their retirement. They become galactic social workers, self-appointed do-gooders.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Margarets (2007), Chapter 53, “We Margarets Walk” (p. 502)

God

“Every company in America should require all workers to be vaccinated, period.”

Robert B. Reich (1946) American political economist

29 July 2021 https://twitter.com/rbreich/status/1420781860066582529

“What would become of the rich, if not for the poor? What would become of these idle, parasitic ladies, who squander more in a week than their victims earn in a year, if not for the eighty million wage-workers? Equality, who ever heard of such a thing?”

Emma Goldman book Anarchism and Other Essays

Anarchism and Other Essays (1910), Woman Suffrage

“The negro workers are still unaware of the force that can give them union organization; happy industrialists.”

Albert I of Belgium (1875–1934) third King of the Belgians

The visit of King Albert I to the Belgian Congo in 1928. Between propaganda and reality. https://www.congoforum.be/Upldocs/Het_bezoek_van_koning_Albert_I_aan_Belgi.compressed.pdf

Happiness

“Optimism with regard to labour as an agency of social progress has been replaced by pessimism that sees little prospect of workers acting on their own behalf.”

Neethi Padmanabhan Indian academic

Globalisation Lived Locally: A Labour Geography Perspective on Control, Conflict and Response among Workers in Kerala https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263155852_Globalisation_Lived_Locally_A_Labour_Geography_Perspective_on_Control_Conflict_and_Response_among_Workers_in_Kerala, 2012, at ResearchGate

Optimism

“We want no injustice done to other people. I do not appeal to you merely as a class, but I do appeal to you workers to form yourselves into an organisation which will use political power in order to protect our human conditions and give you fair play in life.”

Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) British statesman; prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in the Hippodrome, Darlington (25 May 1929), quoted in The Times (27 May 1929), p. 9
1920s

Life, People

“Speech in the evening. Almost exclusively port workers. One proper communist. I am almost at one with him.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

14 November 1925, The Early Goebbels Diaries 1925-1926, Helmut Heiber, edit. Oliver Watson, trans. Frederick A. Praeger, New York, (1963)
Diary excerpts

“Workers who don’t share ownership of the robots will be reduced to political powerlessness far worse than their conditions today. We have the opportunity to solve this problem during the bootstrapping period while human labor is still needed for space industry.”

Sheyene Gerardi Venezuelan actor and model

[NASA CLASS Announces Collaboration With Actress Sheyene Gerardi, http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=38c46884-5abc-491a-89aa-c9bb0b71195c]

Problem

“As women we are workers, organisers, managers, advisers and more importantly nation builders. One woman can make a difference but many women can change the world.”

Thokozani Khuphe (1963) Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe

Source: Zimbabwe: Gender Equality A Right (2010)

Women, World, Change

“We are spending 6 per cent more than we are earning... You can also bankrupt a nation by excessive wage demands... That is why I said that it is better to have a lower standard of life for all workers than for some of them to be unemployed.”

Denis Healey (1917–2015) British Labour Party politician and Life peer

1970s
Source: Remarks to the Liaison Committee with the Trades Union Congress at Congress House (20 January 1975), quoted in Barbara Castle, The Castle Diaries, 1974–76 (1980), pp. 284-285

Life

“Christ himself would agitate against them. He would agitate against the plutocrats and hypocrites who tell workers to go down on their knees and get right with God. Christ, the carpenter’s son, would tell them to stand up on their feet and fight for righteousness and justice on earth.”

Mary Harris Jones (1837–1930) Irish-born American labor and community organizer

Source: Autobiography of Mother Jones

God, Justice, Christ, Fight

“When I talk to the American people about climate change, I tell them it’s about jobs. It’s about workers and the communities that will revitalize themselves around new industries and opportunities.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2021, November 2021, US President's Statement on Day 2 of the 2021 UN Climate Conference

People, Communication, Change

“We ask for prayers and support for our seminarians so that they can recover soon, and for the medical workers looking after them.”

Samuel Oton Sidin (1954) 21st-century Indonesian Catholic bishop

Source: Covid-19 infects 30 Indonesian seminarians https://www.ucanews.com/news/covid-19-infects-30-indonesian-seminarians/89566 (17 September 2020)

Support

“...Our motto, Brazilian workers, is progress with justice, and development with equality...”

João Goulart (1918–1976) 24th President of Brazil

Source: João Goulart. Discursos Selecionados do Presidente João Goulart, 2010, FUNAG, 978-85-7631-193-5, 82, pt-br http://funag.gov.br/loja/download/641-Discursos_joao_goulart.pdf,

Justice

“The hammer will once more become the symbol of the German worker and the sickle the sign of the German peasant,...”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Source: May Day Speech at Tempelhof Air Field, Berlin http://www.nommeraadio.ee/meedia/pdf/RRS/Adolf%20Hitler%20-%20Collection%20of%20Speeches%20-%201922-1945.pdf (1 May 1934), Adolf Hitler: Collection of Speeches 1922-1945, ReichsMilitariaCom; 1st edition (2016), p. 184

“Remote Workers are Your New Competitive Advantage.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Future Proofing You (2021)

“This important act reflects the will of a people demanding unity, especially within the opposition, in order to defeat the dictatorship... I want a social pact with every sector, the productive sectors, with business, with workers, with teachers, with farmers and campesinos, with the informal economy and small and medium-sized businesses”

Xiomara Castro (1959) First Lady of Honduras

Source: Quoted in Could Honduras Shift Left? A Look at Xiomara Castro, by Brendan O'Boyle, America's Quarterly, October 14, 2021

People, Business, Teachers

“Absolute Evil exists. As kids we geriatrics learned all about it, and no damn social worker had better come along and blame “evil” on “conditions.””

Jack Cady (1932–2004) American writer

Evil is a force in the universe, a force using any weakness it finds to do its dirt; and with Evil, Hell is just a sideline.
Source: Kilroy Was Here (1996), p. 134

Learning, Evil

“[W]hen we invest in strengthening workers and the middle class, the poor have a ladder up, and those at the top do just fine. That’s how we can increase opportunity and decrease persistent inequity.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2022, June 2022, Remarks by President Biden at the Inaugural Ceremony of the Ninth Summit of the Americas

“The social and economic revolution of the farm workers is well under way and will not be stopped until they receive equality.”

Dolores Huerta (1930) American labor leader

1966 speech, in Voices of Multicultural America: Notable Speeches Delivered by African, Asian, Hispanic and Native Americans, 1790-1995 by Deborah Gillan Straub

Way

“The workers are on the rise. There will be strikes all over the state and throughout the country because Delano has shown what can be done, and the workers know now they are no longer alone.”

Dolores Huerta (1930) American labor leader

1966 speech, in Voices of Multicultural America: Notable Speeches Delivered by African, Asian, Hispanic and Native Americans, 1790-1995 by Deborah Gillan Straub

Country

“Do you know that we were amazed to find out you can get all kinds of information about what's harmful to a pet, but you can't get any information about what's harmful to a farm worker?”

Dolores Huerta (1930) American labor leader

1974 speech, in Voices of Multicultural America: Notable Speeches Delivered by African, Asian, Hispanic and Native Americans, 1790-1995 by Deborah Gillan Straub

“Once we got the medical plan, we found that that really didn't stop the abuses, because the doctors were still not giving the workers good health care. So the next step was then to build a clinic. So the workers started to build their clinics.”

Dolores Huerta (1930) American labor leader

1974 speech, in Voices of Multicultural America: Notable Speeches Delivered by African, Asian, Hispanic and Native Americans, 1790-1995 by Deborah Gillan Straub

Health

“It is no accident that farm workers have an average life span of forty-nine years of age.”

Dolores Huerta (1930) American labor leader

1974 speech, in Voices of Multicultural America: Notable Speeches Delivered by African, Asian, Hispanic and Native Americans, 1790-1995 by Deborah Gillan Straub

Life, Age

“REMEMBER OLD TIM QUILL

In the moneylenders’ offices
The clocks are standing still
As leading the workers here in Cork
Is our old man Tim Quill

Known for his eloquent oration
When he heads the Cork Trades Council
He devises every selfless action
For the welfare of the nation

In ’22 democracy
Was promised to us all
Yet if it wasn’t for the Co-op
That dream it would just fall

Some say his Friesian herd
Is the most prolific of the lot
Yet the needs of the most desperate
Quill has not forgot

Under the present order
We’re left with debt and slums
Until then we follow Timothy Quill
And his marchers’ fine ol’ drums”

Sean O'Connor

Primary source
Source: Scrap print from Irish Labour history group

Dreams, Democracy

“AN ODE TO JIM QUILL

Not too long ago
We lost a man
Who left Eire for Hyde
A diamond in the rough
One hero of our side

Jim Quill he was named
A natural union leader
One could not be blamed
To follow this avid reader

He lead the cotton workers
And the factory hands too
All those years fought at the top
How his life just flew

Trusted by his old pal Cripps
To guarantee the dignity of labour
Rest in peace, Jim Quill
You freed us from our slaver”

Unknown author

From the Cardroom Amalgamation

Life, Peace, Nature

Quotes about worker page 11

Quotes about worker
page 11