Quotes & Sayings About Fair Wages

There are vivid memories from my childhood - what we had to go through because of low wages and the conditions, basically because there was no union. I suppose, if I wanted to be fair, I could say that I'm trying to settle a personal score. I could dramatize it by saying that I want to bring social justice to farm workers. — Cesar Chavez

While it is not always clear what is fair, and people's judgments of fairness can be biased by their self-interest, there is a growing sense that the present disparity in wages is unfair. When executives argue that wages have to be reduced or that there have to be layoffs in order for corporations to compete, but simultaneously increase their own pay, workers rightly consider that what is going on is unfair. That will affect their effort today, their loyalty to the firm, their willingness to cooperate with others, and their willingness to invest in its future. — Joseph E. Stiglitz

Union members not only earn higher median wages; they are more likely to have paid sick leave, short-term disability, and employer-provided child care. Giving people a voice at work - the ability to organize and negotiate for their fair share of the value they helped create - is absolutely essential to a growing, vibrant middle class. — Thomas Perez

Choosing to work where there is a union and getting the related benefits of higher wages and collective bargaining, but not paying a fair share of the costs of representation, would be freeloading, right? — Cynthia Dill

As a broad generalization, liberals see income as a public good that is distributed, like crayons in a kindergarten class. If so-and-so didn't get his or her fair share of income, it's because someone or something - government, the system - didn't distribute income properly. To the extent conservatives see income inequality as a problem, it is as an indication of more concrete problems. If the poor and middle class are falling behind the wealthy, it might be a sign of declining or stagnating wages or lackluster job creation. In other words, liberals tend to see income inequality as the disease, and conservatives tend to see it as a symptom. — Jonah Goldberg

Our short-term aims," said Hermione, speaking even more loudly than Ron, and acting as though she hadn't heard a word, "are to secure house-elves fair wages and working conditions. Our long-term aims include changing the law about non-wand use, and trying to get an elf into the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, because they're shockingly underrepresented. — J.K. Rowling

I had watched for many years and seen how a few rich families held much of Argentina's wealth and power in their hands. So Peron and the government brought in an eight hour working day, sickness pay and fair wages to give poor workers a fair go . — Evita Peron

What men of science want is only a fair day's wages for more than a fair day's work. — Thomas Huxley

It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?" The clerk smiled faintly. "And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a day's wages for no — Charles Dickens

...[I]t doesn't take an advanced degree to figure out that this education talk is less a strategy for mitigating inequality than it is a way of rationalizing it. To attribute economic results to school years finished and SAT scores achieved is to remove matters from the realm of, well, economics and to relocate them to the provinces of personal striving and individual intelligence. From this perspective, wages aren't what they are because one party (management) has a certain amount of power over the other (workers); wages are like that because the god of the market, being surpassingly fair, rewards those who show talent and gumption. Good people are those who get a gold star from their teacher in elementary school, a fat acceptance letter from a good college, and a good life when they graduate. All because they are the best. Those who don't pay attention in high school get to spend their days picking up discarded cans by the side of the road. Both outcomes are our own doing. — Thomas Frank

When I visited coffee farms in Ethiopia, the farmers could not believe we spend a week's wages in their country on a cup of coffee in ours, because they see so little of the profits. Oxfam's fair trade campaign helps right this wrong. — Colin Firth

A fair day's wages for a fair day's work. — Thomas Carlyle

W.A. supported fair wages, even opposing wage reductions when copper prices fell, and as a result he didn't suffer from strikes. He also offered model healthcare for workers, and when Daly opposed a law requiring safety cages in the mines, Clark supported it - even if only for political advantage. He also supported voting rights for women. — Bill Dedman

Like all other contracts, wages should be left to the fair and free competition of themarket, and should never be controlled by the interference of the legislature. — David Ricardo

And above all, above all, honest work must be rewarded by a fair and just tax system. The tax system today does not reward hard work: it penalizes it. Inherited or invested wealth frequently multiplies itself while paying no taxes at all. But wages on the assembly line or in farming the land, these hard-earned dollars are taxed to the very last penny. — George McGovern

Spare a copper for our cause?" the girl with the coin cup asks, her voice weary.
"I can spare more than that," I say. I reach into my purse and giver her what real coins I have, and then I press my hand to hers and whisper, "Don't give up," watching the magic spark in her eyes.
"The tragedy of the Beardon's Bonnet Factory!" she shouts, a fire catching. "Six souls murdered for a profit! Will you let it stand, sir? Will you look away, m'um?"
Her sisters-in-arms raise their placards again. "Fair wages, fair treatment!" they call. "Justice!"
Their voices swell into a chorus that thunders through the dark London streets until it can no longer be ignored. — Libba Bray

Through job creation, quality public services and better working conditions, people, communities and countries can lift themselves out of poverty, improve livelihoods, engage in local development and live together in peace. This happens only when work is decent - environmentally sound and productive - provides fair wages, and is underpinned by rights — Sharan Burrow