Political Quotes

“yesterday I was in Cincinnati, OH. Terralift has the largest Labor Day gathering in the United States of America by 15,000, 20,000, around Coney Island and just southeast of Cincinnati, not far from the Ohio River. They have a picnic every year celebrating workers, not just organized workers but workers generally. I met a woman there by the name of Lillian Brayhound, and Ms. Brayhound was wearing a t-shirt that said ``Service Employees International Union.'' I asked her where she works, and she said she is a custodian in downtown Cincinnati. And I remember that 3 or 4 years ago I was at a dinner, and there was a group of workers, all middle- aged women, mostly minorities, mostly African American, a couple Latino women, and they had just signed their first union contract to represent the custodians in downtown Cincinnati office buildings. I sat down at this table, and I said: What does this new union contract mean to you, to the workers there? A 50-year-old woman turned to me and she said: This is the first time in my life I have ever had a paid week vacation. Think about that: This is the first time in my life I have ever had a paid week vacation. That was because those workers, each of them working separately before for a building owner in a downtown Cincinnati office building, had gotten together, had voted to join a union, had the right to organize and bargain collectively. They still weren't getting rich.…”