The question is always 'What is the role of a labor movement?' How much is about collective bargaining, how much is about social change for all workers?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I would say the issue for the labor movement in the United States is not structural... there is no correlation between the success of workers and how the labor movement is structured.
To the question how one kind of labor can be measured against another, how the labor of the artisan can be measured against the labor of the artist, how the labor of the strong can be measured against the labor of the weak, the communists can give no answer.
What my Republican colleagues often don't understand is that labor is a human-rights issue. I have to remind them Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement brought down the Communist bloc.
All the time our union was progressing very nicely. There were lectures to make us understand what trades unionism is and our real position in the labor movement.
This led me to understand that trade unionism, the instrument of working-class liberation and of social change could, and indeed should, be also an instrument of industrial progress.
The trade union movement represents the organized economic power of the workers... It is in reality the most potent and the most direct social insurance the workers can establish.
This constitution recognises the need for social dialogue involving labour and management; it involves trade unions in the decision-making process; it has a social vision founded on social dialogue.
I think there's a mystery about what a social movement is.
My parents were both union members, and I grew up hearing how important it was to empower workers and have fair labor practices.
The labor movement means just this: it is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.