I went West and took part in the strike of the machinists - the Southern Pacific Railroad, the corporation that swung California by its golden tail, that controlled its legislature, its farmers, its preachers, its workers.
Mother JonesRead
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
Interpretation
What this quote means
The struggles of workers lead to improved conditions, emphasizing the importance of self-advocacy.
Mother Jones highlights the necessity for workers to fight for their rights and better conditions. She suggests that through their struggles, they can achieve improvements that benefit all, underscoring the idea that change must come from within the worker community, regardless of their circumstances.
Themes
WorkersStruggleLaborConditionsAdvocacySalvation
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech advocating for workers' rights during a labor rally.
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Injustice boils in men's hearts as does steel in its cauldron, ready to pour forth, white hot, in the fullness of time.
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I believe that movements to suppress wrongs can be carried out under the protection of our flag.
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Your ancestors fought for you to have a share in that institution over there. It's yours. See the school board, and every Friday night hold your meetings there. Have your wives clean it up Saturday morning for the children to enter Monday. Your organization is not a praying institution. It's a fighting institution. It's an educational institution along industrial lines. Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!
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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
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Similar quotes
Speaking of myself, I was made to realize long ago that the old trade union was utterly incompetent to deal successfully with the exploiting corporations in this struggle. I was made to see that in craft unionism the capitalist class have it within their power to keep the workers divided, to use one part of them to conquer and crush another part of them. Indeed, I was made to see that the old form of unionism separates the workers and keeps them helpless at the mercy of their masters.
Eugene V. DebsRead
Labor is not fighting for a larger slice of the national pie-labor is fighting for a larger pie.
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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.
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Public employees should have the right to bargain for better wages and working conditions, just like all employees do.
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The union miner cannot agree to the acceptance of a wage principle which will permit his annual earnings and his living standards to be determined by the hungriest unfortunates whom the non-union operators can employ.
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In all the history of organized labor, from the earliest times to the present day, no body of union workingmen ever served in a more humiliating and debasing role than that in which the railway unions appear at this very hour before the American people and the world.
Eugene V. DebsRead