True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (November 20, 1925 - June 6, 1968).

"It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours."
- Harry Truman, the 33rd President of the United States.

"So often we overlook the work and the signifiance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth."

"The Labor Movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress."

"Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it."
- Chinese proverb

"Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will."

- Frederick Douglass

"you have got to unite in the same labor union and in the same political party and strike and vote together, and at the hour you do that, the world is yours."

"The test of our progress is.... Not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have too much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

“The history of America has been largely created by the deeds of its working people and their organizations. Nor has this contribution been confined to raising wages and bettering work conditions; it has been fundamental to almost every effort to extend and strengthen our democracy.”