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.
Richard TrumkaWhat 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.
Richard TrumkaFriends, 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?
Richard TrumkaIn 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.
Richard TrumkaI 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.
Richard TrumkaI 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.
Richard Trumka