Linda Chavez-Thompson
Quotes
Quote collection assembled by Jone Johnson Lewis |
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The face of labor is changing, and you can tell this by the mere fact that I am a woman ... and a woman of color.
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Right at the start, the populists believed that the ordinary
people were the producers, the people who lived by the sweat of their brow, and
the elite were the rich, the bankers and the speculators, who didn’t do
productive work but just lived off of everyone else’s labor.
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We’re determined to improve the lives of working people
and their families—both those who are already union members and those who
don’t yet have a chance to join.
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Together, we can create a community where [all are] treated
with dignity, regardless of their sex or skin color or orientation, regardless
of whether their family came here on a slave ship or the Mayflower four hundred
years ago or through Ellis Island at the turn of the century or from Central
America last year.
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Our goal of improving the working and living standards of
all workers overlaps with the goals of many other groups in society which do not
define themselves by their workplace.
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We don't want unfair trade agreements. We want a social
clause to be included in international trade treaties so that workers' human
rights and union rights are protected in those countries we trade with.
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Day by day, we see with our own eyes that behind the
glitter, behind the low inflation and full employment, and the stock market that
keeps chugging along, there are millions of working people who still can't make
enough money to feed their families and pay the rent.
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Why are communities willing to get involved in organizing
struggles? One reason is that unions are the best way to close the widening
income gap between the very wealthy and the rest of us. Union wages and benefits
lift living standards for everyone in a community. They make paychecks for women
and people of color more equal to those of white males. They create good jobs
and generate purchasing power, which give local economies a boost and help
develop a tax base to pay for public services, safety, libraries, and schools.
They also give working families a way to make corporations act more
responsibly—by paying a living wage, providing adequate health care and
retirement benefits, and abiding by equal pay, job safety, and environmental
laws. (source)
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• Each quotation
page in this collection and the entire collection are © Jone Johnson Lewis
1997-2004. This is an informal collection -- if you need citations for the
original source, I don't have those available unless they're listed with the
quotes. | |||||
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