"Nobody really cares about Amazon workers pissing in bottles; you care about it, but would you want to pay twice as much for Amazon Prime to fix it? No, probably not."
"The people running these trains have been overworked and underpaid for the last 15 or more years."
"I wish businesses were run by ethical people that took into consideration their workers' rights, the environment, animals, and didn't just exclusively focus on capitalism."
"This is Corporate leadership betraying the actual workers."
"All that unions are about is people coming together to fight for a contract which guarantees them certain basic rights."
"Productivity continued to grow, the economy continued to do better and better, but the typical worker's wage started flattening out."
"I didn't ask for too much. I was just asking for a decent, dignified living wage. What they did was legal, but it was immoral."
"How about the workers choose their managers rather than the other way around? How about when management is coming up with policies that directly affect the worker, why don't the workers have a say in creating those policies?"
"When workers have a say in the seat at the table, they end up saying, 'Hey, maybe we should spend some of that we generated back on ourselves.'"
"The plight of the worker has never been meaningfully improved by people whose first ideological priority is defense of the status quo."
"It's kind of hard to turn around and say to the ordinary worker...it's all your responsibility to fix your life."
"Corporate fascism is like you not getting benefits, you being a more productive worker as a consequence of technological improvements and yet not seeing any of the profits that you generate for the company that you work for."
"Labor unions have been the most effective institution at protecting the rights of workers."
"We're treated like we're expendable. We're human beings, not robots, not disposable."
"It's only through collective bargaining and organizing that workers can balance out the power with their employers."
"To me, the liberty of a few hundred thousand people in this country to make obscene amounts of money off the exploitation of their workers is worth infinitely less than the liberty of every American to be able to have a say in the workplaces that they're a part of."
"We say to Mister Bezos, stop the intimidation. Stop the harassment stop the coercion, stop the illegal behavior. Start treating your workers with the respect and dignity they deserve."
"Unions have the capacity to increase wages even for non-unionized workers by 10% across the board."
"We need changes in workplaces, whether it's worker cooperatives, profit sharing, things like that."
"You have a baby, and the woman's supposed to go back into the coal mines, back in the assembly lines? Why are three-quarters of Republicans being ignored by their own politicians? That's because they're corrupt corporate lackeys."
"Why should you and I have to pay for working people to have their basic needs if they're working?"
"We don't work for the economy, the economy is supposed to work for us."
"We can't abolish poverty in this country if we don't find a way to increase worker power."
"Nobody's having to make that choice between looking after their health and the health of those around them or go into work because they can't afford not to."
"There is no freedom in a country that is privatized tyranny where your bosses can do whatever they want and never even give you an exam."
"AFL focused on 'pure and simple unionism': higher wages, shorter hours, better working conditions."
"Instead of focusing all their efforts on just a handful of stores in one town, Starbucks bosses are left playing an impossible game of whack-a-mole trying to stomp out efforts to unionize that are cropping up everywhere."
"But to be screaming at these people that they don't need to take any breaks while working eight-hour shifts is just unrealistic and, two, I'm pretty sure it's illegal."
"Strikes aren't just about pay, they're also about job security and passenger safety."
"Workers deserve a fair share of the benefits they help create for an enterprise."
"Unions are good for democracy, worker power is good for democracy."
"If you're against protections for workers, you're essentially saying 'remain poor and die young.'"
"This is not a simple political disagreement, this is a dire crisis being imposed on the working people of America."
"We need to build unions in this country because it's one of the key ways that we can counterbalance the domination of our government by corporate power."
"We need to free workers from being tied to their job because of their health care."
"They're not being compensated, and other people who are not even essential workers have been cashing checks left and right."
"That's what the average American worker has to deal with. That's what these scummy politicians should have to deal with."
"Even just the first little threat of unionization forces these corporate titans into making some concessions."
"People who have been working hard... should not be living at the poverty level."
"No corporate bailout if you are going to lay off workers."
"So when trade agreements are done, usually trade agreements try to hold other countries to the same standard when it comes to like pollution or when it comes to worker rights, right?"
"Nobody should have to live paycheck to paycheck being employed by one of the biggest game developers in the world."
"Every worker should get as high a wage as they can."
"Countless labor actions in early modern Europe can be traced back to some dumbass boss with something to prove trying to crack down on their beloved Saint Monday this was the real origin of the two-day weekend."
"You should never ever have to pay to be an employee somewhere."
"Once you throw working people under the bus, you're setting the table for inequality."
"It's the workers we should bail out, it's the people we should protect, not the corporations."
"We demand the most from essential workers while paying them the least."
"Do you think just between you and me if the workers who produce the surplus for Amazon got together to decide what to do with the surplus, they'd give it to Mr. Bezos?"
"Attacking a company like Tesla that has done so much good for California should not be the overriding aim of a state agency with prosecutorial authority. The interests of workers and fundamental fairness must come first."
"Allow undocumented immigrants to be documented immigrant workers and not treat them as second-class citizens."
"It's time for us as we're called essential workers to be treated that way, to have a decent quality of life, to have the respect of our employers."
"We deserve a lot more respect and consideration than what we're getting here."
"Being able to speak directly to the everyday lives of those workers is a very real thing and it's a mobilizing message."
"We're talking about the American worker, but here's what's interesting about that: I thought Republicans said that they were the party of the working class. Hmm, that's sort of wrong."
"But there's no unseeing the shocking abuse of our corporate overlords to everyday workers."
"They don't need more platitudes, they need higher wages."
"Government should never be a barrier to workers organizing."
"If Apple were a worker cooperative, each employee would earn at least $403,000 a year."
"The most crucial thing right now is the union drives in major corporations like Amazon and Starbucks."
"We're here to ensure everybody has a very fair, livable wage and can go home to their families and look in the eyes and be proud of where they work."
"We want to affirm the worker in America. Working people in America don't want a government that comes in and says actually you know people in DC know better than you."
"We need to do more than just praise our essential workers. We need to pay them."
"I care about the safety and well-being of anybody working in any sphere."
"Wealth never disappears, it merely shifts location."
"The most important political fight in the country is the one that's being fought by workers at Starbucks and Amazon and elsewhere."
"Being part of the union really allows you to use your collective voice."
"Having the union back us makes our workplace have accountability for things that are going on."
"The only way that we can really have a true voice is if we come together and stand together with a union."
"A union is two or more workers who get together to improve their conditions."
"The power of the working person versus the power of the management."
"We don't realize the power that we are if we organize." - Panelist discussing black worker organization
"We need a massive uprising of labor in this country."
"How can Whole Foods or Amazon say they value open communication but use this interactive heat map as a way to spy on their workers?"
"Imagine people being able to earn, they don't have to work two jobs to be able to put food on their table. They should be able to have health care and a roof over their head and food for their family in the richest country in the world."
"Games could be made without exploiting customers and without exploiting developers."
"Bernie wants all working people to have what they need."
"HelloFresh, in my opinion, is systemically putting things in place that do not allow workers to have a word at all. It's extremely intentional."
"Provide emergency paid sick leave to everyone who needs it... gig workers, domestic workers, contractors, and the self-employed."
"The ultimate power that workers have is the ability to stop doing what they're doing."
"I want to expand that Freedom there so people who work at their jobs for eight hours a day have the ability to vote for things in their lives."
"They were told how easily replaceable we are... capitalism is a disease."
"Don't want to give me my last paycheck? Make that a double."
"What is the job of the Labour Party if not to fight that paradigm that some workers are not worthy of respect?"
"Are we a nation that tolerates the hypocrisy of a system where workers who pick our fruit and make our beds never have a chance to get right with the law?"
"We eliminated two-tier wage systems, put air conditioners in trucks, improved pensions, maintained healthcare, and got UPS to agree to Martin Luther King Day as a paid holiday."
"It's easier for the 'AAA' game industry to keep treating works like dirt if they don't have a name because if they don't have a name, they don't have a voice."
"Why workers should contra what you might be hearing from leading politicians - why they should ask for a pay rise."
"Worker organizing is going to inject that into the political debate like no other time in history."
"Fast food workers are about to get a 25% pay raise."
"A demand: in every workplace, a workers committee is set up to monitor, supervise, and control the health and safety."
"They're seen as representing broad swaths of the working class against employers and against the government."
"Workers are not treated as people with needs and wants and dreams and aspirations. Nope, they are just the inefficient flesh robots used to get the wealthy their damn drinks."
"If your plan is to starve workers like dogs, don't be surprised when they turn around and eat the rich."
"People will not do that. They will say, 'Well okay, I guess I'll leave or I'll quit or I'll find another job, but I'm not going to just suddenly let you put me down to 12 an hour when I was making 17.'"
"Kellogg's workers went on strike and eventually won."
"These courageous worker organizers, they've already had some measurable impact."
"Unionization and its many gains should be applauded for its contributions to our quality of life, the fair nature of our economy, and the expectations of workers and consumers alike."
"Terrible working conditions, unlawful hours, and shockingly low pay were the realities."
"If you love America, you've got to love American workers. If you love American workers, you've got to treat them with respect and dignity."
"Bernie Sanders is a leftist, yet what he is saying is the sort of thing that I, a conservative person, could agree on."
"That's why we're here. It's not because of political action that we got to this point; it's because of worker action."
"It's truly insane that we're not fair to workers in this country."
"I just really hope that things get better for the animators who are working on Jiu-Jitsu Kaizen."
"Profit is what led to us not being prepared... profit is what led people to fire 52 million people... profit is what making workers... suffer lower pay and lost benefits."
"Criminalization of migration has functioned as a way to police labor populations."
"A lot of workers report being treated like animals, being yelled at and bossed around in totally inhumane ways."
"We deserve to have a say in what is going on here, and you can't call us essential and then treat us like we're garbage."
"We've got to make things better for ordinary working people in this country."
"They don't care about the working people. They don't care about regular Americans. They care about enslaving you."
"Workers should have a right to a non-hostile work environment."
"The changes that came after the fire were because of this tragedy, but the factory workers had voiced concerns for these changes while they were protesting, and they had the power while they were protesting."
"If we must grind up human flesh and bone in the industrial machine." - A powerful plea for worker protection and rights.
"We do not want the transition from a fossil fuel economy to an electric economy to represent an erosion in the unionization and rights of workers."
"The only leverage that workers have is the threat of strike."
"They will do absolutely nothing. You're going to be used and discarded, left in a contract gulag and receive zero benefits you couldn't otherwise get for yourself for free."
"We must fight for workers councils that govern these institutions because we know that the people governing these institutions and running them now do not do it in the interest of the students."
"The Labor Department announced that millions of Americans could be eligible for overtime pay if their proposal does in fact become the law of the land."
"Auto workers help create America's middle class; they deserve a contract that sustains them in the middle class."
"They've stepped up, they've defended the workers, they've won."
"I don't respect anybody taking money out of these girls hands when they work so goddamn hard every day to put food in their house and to provide for their family."
"Workers coast to coast are beginning to stand up, fight back, and demand to be represented by a union."
"You can't keep calling them essential workers and then deny them essential pay, essential time off, and essential everything else. That's a mistake."
"This is a battle between the workers and the capitalists."
"This was like rank-and-file ordinary regular workers organizing for a union."
"I'm more so like I think it'd be great if we brought jobs back here, if we protected the middle class, maybe had stronger workers' rights, unions, I'm in favor of that."
"We need a revived labor movement, we need labor militancy."
"This is the time that the guys really need to unionize."
"You got to compensate these guys accordingly that's the only issue have with that."
"If you can go to space, you can give our workers a bathroom break."
"The electoral system is geared to make sure that working people are always squeezed."
"More than 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka have died in Qatar since the emirate won the right to host the World Cup 10 years ago."
"All I want is for v-tubers and streamers to be treated better by people and the companies they work for."
"If you could give any amount of control back to workers in their environment, it's probably the best macro thing for a social system."
"We want workers themselves to immediately make demands and not wait for a lengthy process."
"A good society allows workers to enjoy a significant share of the value that they create."
"I need to read Chris in 2020, a couple months after it was laid off and he's like we're not going to stop till we get unions at Amazon."
"Postal workers don't want to be on strike at Christmas but this is not just about this Christmas, this is about every Christmas."
"We believe the dispute we're involved in now represents the biggest, most brutal attack on workers' jobs that this country has seen in decades."
"It's just dystopian the relationship we have with like workers in this country and not just uh from the capitalists also um some governmental employees namely teachers."
"Every one of these issues...has been about overworked, undercompensated, totally abused workers."
"Let's give them the child care, let's give them the paid sick leave, let's give them the incomes which they deserve, let's give them the protection."
"We're fighting for the survival of our profession. Here's the simple truth: we're up against a system where those in charge of multi-billion dollar media conglomerates are rewarded for exploiting workers."
"Whole Foods workers organize a walkout asking for hazard pay."
"Employers and big corporations can't keep abusing people like this. At some point, Something's Gotta Give."
"Workers can really claim that it's their Union and now they're in a situation where instead of being scared and desperate and hoping to pull off every right move they have room to experiment."
"Equal pay for equal work, that's what we're out here for today."
"Workers are standing up, fighting back, saying enough is enough."
"Listen, here's the thing. If you're a worker and you're working in a unionized business, you're benefiting from the work that's been done by the union. They've collectively bargained for higher wages and better benefits."
"Worker alienation is produced through the estrangement of workers from their sense of humanity."
"America's working families deserve opportunity and nothing less."
"What is good for one worker must be good for all, and what injures one must injure all, poor or rich."
"Many workers are no longer willing to put up with the working conditions and pay accepted prior to the pandemic."
"... he the thing that happens is that he's exploiting her right so he's not treating her very well as his worker and so they have a blow up about that essentially so again it was just like another reminder that this like billionaire exploits workers..."
"You cannot be a good businessman who doesn't look after the well-being of your workers. Workers must be paid on time and be paid living wages."
"I don't want American workers to compete against people making 56 cents an hour."
"The line between a W-2 employee and a 1099 employee can become very blurry."
"I prefer places where the workers are treated humanely like being allowed to sit and be comfortable for the duration of their shifts."
"Workers have the power, if they're willing to realize it and use it."
"What does it mean to move towards worker cooperatives, where workers can make decisions about their work patterns, work styles, and work hours?"
"OSHA standards require that employers maintain conditions or adopt practices reasonably necessary and appropriate to protect workers on the job."
"If productive labor is supposed to allow a person to flourish, then people who pay wages are obligated to pay a living wage."
"You shall not oppress a hired worker who is poor and needy."
"Not happy with the conditions that the other players are placing on you? Well, guess what, you can go on strike."
"We've had regulation of pensions to protect the pension rights that Baby Boomers and older workers have built up."
"If a business cannot financially succeed without exploiting its workers, it shouldn't be a business."
"Graduate students aren't students; they're workers."
"If CEOs can negotiate their salaries and benefits, then working people should be able to bargain together to negotiate theirs."
"The invention of technology for monitoring workers seems to be dehumanizing workers."