Barack Obama
“I’ve said this before publicly, and I’ll say it again: I make no apologies for it. I am a pro-union guy. Our unions helped build our middle class. We take for granted so much stuff — minimum wage laws, 40-hour work week, overtime, child labor laws. Those things wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for unions fighting for those rights. So even if you’re not a member of a union, you’ve got to be appreciative of what unions have done.”
John F. Kennedy
"Our labor unions are not narrow, self-seeking groups. They have raised wages, shortened hours, and provided supplemental benefits. Through collective bargaining and grievance procedures, they have brought justice and democracy to the shop floor."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Only a fool would try to deprive working men and working women of their right to join the union of their choice."
National Council of Churches (Representing 33 million Protestants)
Whereas, the churches, in the statement of 'The Social Ideals,' have stood for 'The right of employees and employers alike to organize for collective bargaining'. Resolved: that the National Council record its conviction that not only has labor a right to organize, but also that it is socially desirable that it do so because of the need for collective action in the maintenance of standards of living.
Pope Paul VI
"The important role of union organizations must be admitted: their object is the representation of the various categories of workers, their lawful collaboration in the economic advance of society, and the development of the sense of their responsibility for the realization of the common good."
Catholic Church
Labor can have no effective voice as long as it is unorganized. To protect its rights it must be free to bargain collectively through its own chosen representatives.
Jewish Synagogue
The same rights of organization which rest with employers rest also with those whom they employ. Modern life has permitted wealth to consolidate itself through organization into corporations. Workers have the same inalienable right to organize according to their own plan for their common good and to bargain collectively with their employers through such honorable means as they may choose. -Central Conference of American Rabbis
Clarence Darrow
"With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men."
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