Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.
Interpretation
Unions play a crucial role in setting standards for wages and working conditions, benefiting all workers.
This quote highlights the influence of labor unions on the entire workforce, emphasizing that even employees in non-unionized companies benefit from the standards set by unions. The author asserts that the improvements in salaries, benefits, and working conditions achieved through union negotiations indirectly lift the quality of life for all workers, regardless of their union affiliation.
In practice
In a speech advocating for workers' rights, you could say, 'Remember, although only a fraction of workers are unionized, they set the standards we all enjoy.'
Racists seem obsessed by the idea that illegal workers - the hardest-working, poorest people in America - are somehow getting away with something, sneaking goodies that should be for Americans. You can always avoid this problem by having no social services. This is the refreshing Texas model, and it works a treat.
Populism is the simple premise that markets need to be restrained by society and by a democratic political system. We are not socialists or communists, we are proponents of regulated capitalism and, I might add, people who have read American history.
We should all laugh more at our elected officials - it's good for us and good for them.
Imagine wasting all that perfectly good anger on paranoid fantasies. Not since Emily Litella got upset about "Soviet jewelry" has there been such a waste of anger. You will notice a certain theme to these Emily Litella Moments. Behind them all is a touching faith that someone, somewhere is actually in charge of what's happening - a proposition I beg leave to doubt.
All anyone needs to enjoy the state legislature is a strong stomach and a complete insensitivity to the needs of the people. As long as you don't think about what that peculiar body should be doing and what it actually is doing to the quality of life in Texas, then it's all marvelous fun.
I really do think we're going through a period of concentration of ownership of media, and we're starting to see the effects at the editorial level, and it's all bad. This increased pressure for profits every quarter, smaller news hole, less coverage of important stuff - the extent that it's become one giant infotainment industry.
Labor is not fighting for a larger slice of the national pie-labor is fighting for a larger pie.
Public employees should have the right to bargain for better wages and working conditions, just like all employees do.
Little girls and boys, barefooted, walked up and down between the endless rows of spindles, reaching thin little hands into the machinery to repair snapped threads
Why should the railroad employees be parceled out among a score of different organizations? They are all employed in the same service. Their interests are mutual. They ought to be able to act together as one. But they divide according to craft and calling, and if you were to propose today to unite them that they might actually do something to advance their collective and individual interests as workers, you would be opposed by every grand officer of these organizations.
Safe working conditions, fair wages, protection from forced labor, and freedom from harassment and discrimination - these must become standard global operating conditions.
Out of labor's struggle in Arizona came better conditions for the workers, who must everywhere, at all times, under advantage and disadvantage work out their own salvation
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