Richard Trumka Quotes

A worker voting for Mitt Romney is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.

The bottom has fallen out of America's wage floor. And the erosion of the minimum wage has lowered pay and working standards for all of us.

I say let's go back to a truer use of the word 'freedom.' Let's start with President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. I would add the freedom to bargain collectively. Those freedoms are under attack today.

Time after time we're told corporations should have freedom from pesky job safety regulations, environmental protections and labor standards - giving working people the freedom to be crushed in collapsing mines, choke on filthy air and get paid too little to live on.

I do believe that freedom isn't free - but today the corporate and political right wing is trying to cheapen this truly American value. They've been cynically using the word 'freedom' to rally the American public against its own best interests.

There is nothing stronger than the American labor movement. United, we cannot and we will not be turned aside. Well work for it, sisters and brothers. Well stand for it. Together. Each of us. To bring out the best in America. To bring out the best in ourselves, and each other.

Better world. Better life for everybody, every worker. Poor kids oughta be able to go anyplace their brains will take them. Not where Daddy or Mommy's pocketbooks can send them. Everybody oughta have health care, everybody oughta have some retirement security, every American. Every one. Everybody oughta have a decent good job. That's what I believe in, and that's what I fight every day to try to achieve.

You see, without hard work and responsibility, there is no American Dream. Hard work lays the foundation. Our solidarity makes work pay - for all of us. For the greater good. That's what our vision of shared prosperity is all about.

In the past we couldn't talk to non-union workers. Now we can at least talk to non-union workers so we'll be mobilizing them and educating them not for just six or eight months before an election, but we'll be doing it year-round.

Working people really amaze me. When you give them all the facts, they make the right decision every single time.

We face a campaign of fear and division every day at the workplace or every time we try to organize a work site. We're able to get through that by talking through the facts and having people join together. Donald Trump, I will say three things about Donald Trump. One, he's unfit to be president. Two, he would make it much more difficult for working people to make ends meet. And, three, he would tear our country apart.

What I care about is whether or not a leader will work with America's working people, whether or not a leader cares about responsibility and honest work and whether or not a leader will fight to keep the American Dream alive.

The ultimate goal of those who blame workers for Wall Street's economic crisis is to unravel the fabric of our common life in pursuit of greed and power.

We can support Barack Obama because he's committed to putting America back to work with good jobs - and he proved it by saving the auto industry.

You see, to me, it doesnt really matter if an elected official has a D or an R behind her name, or his name. I honestly dont give a damn about who belongs to either political party.

Friends, I'm angry about what's happening in politics today! Why is it wrong to ask the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations to pay their fair share?

I think Donald Trump successfully tapped into the frustration and anger across the white males and across the working people in general. But when you give them the facts about his policies, that he thinks our wages are too high, that he supports right-to-work, they come back across the bridge. Look, in the last election, we had the same problem with Barack Obama. It was because of race, not sex at that point or gender.

We have a raising wages agenda. And that includes tax policy, trade policy. TPP is a very bad agreement. Covers 40 percent of the world's economy, and it will cost us jobs. It's not well-drafted. It's an agreement, an investment agreement that will benefit Wall Street a lot, but not working people.

You can be dogmatic, like Donald Trump, and say don't tell me any of the facts, I have made up my mind, I don't want to hear anything, or you can say, look, trade can be good or it can be bad, depending on the rules.

When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, Sarah Palin tweeted, 'Obama lies; freedom dies.' She's referring, I guess, to the freedom to go without health care when you're sick.

And, you know, money is - the money edge is really dangerous to democracy. Because what you have right now - people have said to me that, look, you'll always be outspent, so how can you ever win?

We can support President Barack Obama, because he supports us. We can support Barack Obama, because he shares our values and our vision.

Take a stand against intolerance and for our American values. Say it with pride: I support democracy in America. I support working people in America. I support opportunity in America. And I support Barack Obama for another four years as president of the United States of America!

We're building an independent political program that can run electoral politics and then turn on a dime to hold our leaders to task, in case they suddenly develop that old case of amnesia! We'll be there to remind them what they promised and who they promised to work for!