Organize your contractor!
Updated 07/17/08 4:15PM

The need for stronger unions is as important now as it has ever been.

It seems that the citizens of the U.S.A. have forgotten the history of the labor movement and we need to learn it again. It is dire time that we all realize the power that our founding fathers gave us.

For too long we have sat back and allowed a small number of wealthy people to make all of our decisions for us. This is not the way our government was designed. All politics are local. That means we all can have a say much more than just voting every 2 or 4 years. One excellent way to get involved is to join a labor union.

Our country is at its best when we all stick together. History has proved this time and again. It has also proved that we are at our worst when we allow the few to make our decisions for us.

By allowing the wrong people to make our decisions we have seen millions of jobs shipped over seas, labor laws pillaged, poverty explode, inflation skyrocket, wages stagnate, families torn apart over financial issues and the need for both parents to work at least 1 job apiece. We have watched these people turn their heads purposely to allow a cheap, illegal work-force to undermine our legal work-force, all the while blaming someone else for this. We have sat back and watched as the entire industrialized world decided to give the citizens of their respective countries actual health care while our leaders warned us of this 'frightening' epidemic of nationalized health care. They instead steered us in the direction of private, wealthy individuals to get richer from our sicknesses and diseases.

It is time for us to step in and take control. Now.

Through loss of life, blood and tears our pioneer labor leaders won us the right to bargain collectively and our economy and way of life flourished. Then we let our guard down and here we are, in a battle to see who will work the cheapest.

Let's not disrespect the heroes who fought for our rights. Don't allow them to have fought and died in vain. Remember what they gave us.

It is our right to organize and it is our duty to organize.

It is as simple as this: United we stand, divided we fall.

"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men."

"There is no America without labor, and to fleece the one is to rob the other." - Abraham Lincoln

"If a man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar!" - Abraham Lincoln

"The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindred." - Abraham Lincoln

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration" - Abraham Lincoln

"Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing of the bad effects of high profits." - Adam Smith

Speak up for people who cannot speak for themselves. Protect the rights of all who are helpless. Speak for them and be a righteous judge. Protect the rights of the poor and needy. - Proverbs 31: 8-9 Holy Bible

"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." -Jesus Christ - Matthew 19:24

"Capital should be at the service of labor and not labor at the service of capital." - Pope John Paul II

"Only a fool would try to deprive working men and working women of their right to join the union of their choice." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Whatever there is of greatness in the United States or indeed in any other country, is due to labor. The laborer is the author of all greatness and wealth. Without labor there would be no government, and nothing to preserve." - Ulysses S. Grant

"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

"The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and above all new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right to work'. It has no 'rights' and has no 'work'. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"We must learn to live together as brothers or we are going to perish together as fools." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned--this is the sum of good government". - Thomas Jefferson

"The history of the labor movements needs to be taught in every school in this land. ...America is a living testimonial to what free men and women, organized in free democratic trade unions can do to make a better life. ...We ought to be proud of it!" - Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr.

"Those who would destroy or further limit the rights of organized labor- those who cripple collective bargaining or prevent organization of the unorganized- do a disservice to the cause of democracy." - John F. Kennedy

"The American Labor Movement has consistently demonstrated its devotion to the public interest. It is, and has been, good for all America." - John F. Kennedy

"On the economic side, the working class serves as a model. They have succeeded, at least to some extent, in protecting their economic interest. We can learn from them too, how this problem can be solved by the method of organization." - Albert Einstein

"No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living". - Franklin D. Roosevelt

"If I were a worker in a factory, the first thing I would do would be to join a union." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Organizing new workers into unions has to be the primary goal of the labor movement today. Even in a shifting economy, there are millions of workers who need, want and deserve union representation." - William J. Clinton

"If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves". - Lane Kirkland

"For workers- do you think you should be loyal to your company- and your company loyal to you? Forget it. Welcome to the '90s." - Ted Koppel

Employees shall have the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing. - National Labor Relations Act




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