Right to work

“ The right to work and the freedom to work are guaranteed. The community shall provide ever more favorable conditions toward the realization of the right to work, especially by developing the productive forces and the material bases of other socially organized activities, and by promoting concern for the interests of the working man in regard to work. Everyone shall be free to choose an occupation and employment. Forced labor shall be prohibited. Every citizen shall have access, under conditions of equality, to every job and every office in the community. ”

“ When I said that the workers regulated the conditions of work, I meant the workers as a whole--that is, the people at large, all of whom are nowadays workers, you know. The regulation and mutual adjustment of the conditions of the several branches of the industrial system are wholly done by the General Government. At the same time, however, the regulation of the conditions of work in any occupation is effectively, though indirectly, controlled by the workers in it through the right we all have to choose and change our occupations. ”

“ Besides the mere protective limitations of working time and of the intervals of work, we have also the actual prohibition of certain kinds of work. Freedom in the pursuit of work being the right of all, and work being a moral and social necessity to the whole population, prohibition of work must evidently be restricted to certain extreme cases. ”

“ The British Labour Party has drafted a Bill which, asserting the right to work, makes provision of work for the unemployed compulsory and enables the local authorities compulsorily to acquire land with a view of setting the unemployed to work. ”

“ Not only have our laboring-classes better houses and better places to work in; but employers recognize the right of the employed to seek more than the bare wage of existence. In the darkness and turmoil of our modern industrial strifes we discern but dimly the principles that underlie the struggle. ”

“ The right is being more and more conceded to labour unions of controlling certain matters which relate to the discipline and conditions of work, and more assurance is given to the working-men 343of permanent employment, so that they are able to bring up their families with more confidence and security. ”

“ The objection that the fourth section is void on the ground that it deprives a man of the right to work at all times is equally without force. However broad the right of every one to follow such calling and employ his time as he may judge most conducive to his interests, it must be exercised subject to such general rules as are adopted by society for the common welfare. ”

“ National and international protective legislation for workmen on the basis of a normal eight hours day, prohibition of child labour under fourteen years, prohibition of night work save rendered necessary by the nature of the work or the welfare of society, superintendence of labour and its relations by a Ministry of Labour, thorough workshop hygiene, equality of status between the agricultural labourer, servant class, and the artisan, right of association, and State insurance, as to which the working class should have an authoritative voice. ”

“ These principles are as follows: labor shall not be regarded merely as a commodity or an article of commerce; employers and employees shall have the right of forming associations; a wage adequate to maintain a reasonable standard of living shall be paid; an eight-hour day shall be adopted; a weekly day of rest 107 shall be allowed; child labor shall be abolished and provision shall be made for the education of youth; men and women shall receive equal pay for equal work; equitable treatment shall be accorded to all workers, including aliens resident in foreign lands ”

“ He may combine with others to enforce this right and form a union with his fellow-workers to exert the adequate moral power to maintain it or better his condition within the limit of justice.
The worker in the last resort has the right to refuse to work, that is, to strike, and to induce by peaceful and lawful measures others to strike with him. ”

“ Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Article 24
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay. ”

“ my clergyman, thus indicating my sense of the quality of their work." By all means, also, choose your bricklayer; that is the proper reward of the good workman, to be "chosen." The natural and right system respecting all labour is, that it should be paid at a fixed rate, but the good workman employed, and the bad workmen unemployed. The false, unnatural, and destructive system is, when the bad workman is allowed to offer his work at half-price, and either take the place of the good, or force him by his competition to work for an inadequate sum. ”

“ Special and class legislation must be abandoned, and the dignity of labor must be fully vindicated.
But it may be asked, How are these things to be accomplished? We answer: 1st. By laborers asserting their right to think and act as independent men; by giving their employers to understand that they do not hire their intellects, their rights as citizens, but only their physical force; that while they labor for their employers, they preserve their individuality and self-respect; by giving their employers to understand that they are only paid for manual labor, and that they are not bondsmen. ”

“ Implementing fair labor practices by recognizing the right of all employees, regardless of racial or other distinctions, to self-organization and to form, join, or assist labor organizations, freely and without penalty or reprisal, and recognizing the right to refrain from any such activity. ”

“ It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do which shall be worth doing, and be of itself pleasant to do; and which should be done under such conditions as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious. ”

“ No longer may they claim the right to run their own business, to beat down the laborer's standard of living for the sake of increased profits, to dictate terms of employment to individual workers, to wax righteously indignant when organized labor takes a hand in their business. ”

“ This is the old principle that governed industrial relations until governmental legislation and trade-union activity compelled a recognition of the worker's rights. By that principle the capitalist and the laborer are free to work together or to fight each other, to make what arrangements they can about wages, hours, and health conditions, to share in profits if the employer is kindly disposed, but always with labor in a position of subordination and without recognized rights, as in the old political despotisms, which were sometimes benevolent but more often ruthless. ”

“ Any American has the right to quit his employment, so has every American the right to seek employment. The group must not endanger the individual, and we must discourage groups preying upon one another. ”

“ So you must do right for the sake of the right, not in the hope of reward; you must work for the sake of the work, not in the hope of seeing the result; you must give yourself to the service of the world because you love it, and cannot help giving yourself to it. ”

“ Labor too must come into its own and must be given every protection in its right to organize. The powers of our Court of Industrial Relations must be revised. While we encourage and strengthen organized labor, we must make ample provision to insure the responsibility of labor and of labor unions. ”

“ Great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and our duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions. ”

“ The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralising. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends. ”

“ One group of laws in which labor is vitally interested is laws touching the right of the workers to organize. Many of the most important judicial decisions in labor cases have turned upon this point. In this are involved the right to fold arms, and peacefully to suggest to others to do the same; the right to band together not to buy non-union goods, and peacefully to persuade others not to buy.
One angle from which labor views all law-making is that of administration. A law may be beneficial. It is in danger on two sides. ”

“ The whole structure and function of Labour Organisations and Restrictive Legislation in every industry is analysed and criticised in a manner never before attempted. The employer in difficulties with his workmen, the Trade Unionist confronted with a new assault upon his Standard Rate, the politician troubled about a new project for Factory Legislation, the public-spirited citizen concerned as to the real issues of a labour dispute, will find elucidated in this work the very problems about which they are thinking. ”

“ Labor.—Arbitration should take the place of strikes and other injurious methods of settling labor disputes. The letting of convict labor to contractors should be prohibited, the contract system be abolished in public works, the hours of labor in industrial establishments be reduced, commensurate with the increased production by labor-saving machinery, employés protected from bodily injury, equal pay for equal work for both sexes, and labor, agricultural, and co-operative associations be fostered and encouraged by law. ”

“ The drastic amendment of the Factory Acts, to secure (a) a safe and healthy work-place for every worker, (b) the prevention of overwork for all women and young persons, (c) the abolition of all wage-labor by children under 14, (d) compulsory technical instruction by extension of the half-time arrangements to all workers under 18?
7. The direct employment of labor by all public authorities whenever possible; and, whenever it is not possible, employment only of fair houses, prohibition of sub-contracting, and payment of trade-union rates of wages? ”

“ New conceptions of Right and Wrong must generate and permeate the workers. We must look on conduct and actions that advance the social and economic position of the working class as Right, ethically, legally, religiously, socially and by every other measurement. That conduct and those actions which aid, helps to maintain and gives comfort to the capitalist class, we must consider as Wrong by every standard. ”

“ Under this principle, what, in conditions of freedom, will be the terms on which one man can hire others to work for him? Evidently, they will be fixed by what those others could make if labouring for themselves. ”

“ We have recognized the right of labor to free organization, to collective bargaining; and machinery for the handling of labor relations is now in existence. The principles are established even though we can all admit that, through the evolution of time, administration and practices can be improved. ”

“ Some of the states have now fairly complete statutory enactments concerning labour disturbances, while others have little or no legislation of this class. The Labour disputes. right of employés to strike for any cause or for no cause is sustained by the common law everywhere in the United States. Likewise an employer has a right to discharge any or all of his employés when they have no contract with him, and he may refuse to employ any person or class of persons for any reason or for no reason. ”

“ Industry we have got to humanize,—not through the trusts,—but through the direct action of law guaranteeing protection against dangers and compensation for injuries, guaranteeing sanitary conditions, proper hours, the right to organize, and all the other things which the conscience of the country demands as the workingman's right. ”

“ Our mission is to educate them to strength and worthiness, to strip off the badge of servitude they wear, to teach them that labour's rights and duties are as honourable and onerous as the rights and duties of the wealthiest employer of labour, and that the labourer—if honest and true to his manhood—has a higher patent of nobility than was ever given by yellow parchment or crumbling seal. ”

“ [8]
¶Among ourselves we differ in many qualities, of body, head, and heart; we are unequally developed, mentally as well as physically. But each of us has the right to ask that he shall be protected from wrong-doing as he does his work and carries his burden through life. No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing; ”

“ It is not a question, and never has been in this case, as to the right of the labor men to organize; the right of the laboring man to use all of the lawful methods for the purpose of bettering his condition. ”

“ Free discussion concerning the conditions in industry and the causes of labor disputes appears to us indispensable to the effective and intelligent use of the processes of popular government to shape the destiny of modern industrial society. The issues raised by regulations, such as are challenged here, infringing upon the right of employees effectively to inform the public of the facts of a labor dispute are part of this larger problem. ”

“ To pass a law which forbade or prevented the individual workman to leave his work before receiving the approval of society in doing so would be to adopt a new principle into our jurisprudence, which I take it for granted we are not prepared to introduce. ”

“ Whereas, We believe it our duty as citizens to range ourselves with others in the assertion and defense of the rights of man, be he employer or workman; now, therefore,
We affirm that absolute personal independence of the individual to work or not to work, to employ or not to employ, is a fundamental principle which should never be questioned or assailed; that upon it depends the security of our whole social fabric and business prosperity, and that employers and workmen should be equally interested in its defense and preservation. ”