Top 107 Quotes & Sayings by Sharan Burrow

Public opinion must be heard.

The environment, stabilizing the climate, needs urgent attention from all of us.

Corporate greed, corporate bullying cannot be tolerated - it's time for a global rule of law to guarantee fair trade, rights, minimum wages on which people can live with dignity, and safe and secure work.

When minimum living wages, bargaining for fair wages, pensions, and job security are denied in too many countries, it is not rocket science to understand the drivers of inequality.

For the unions, it is simple. There are no jobs on a dead planet.

Out of the fires of desperation burn hope and solidarity.

Illicit trade corrupts corporations and governments alike, allows dictators to survive, and obscures oppression, including modern day slavery.

Labour is not a commodity.

If you put stimulus into an economy, you know there is a time lag in terms of depending where you invest it. If it's family transfers, it might be quick. If it's infrastructure, it might be two, three, five years.

You cannot fuel demand, or consumption-led demand, on credit forever.

Where laws recognize rights to collective bargaining, the truth is that employee rights to negotiate with employers are denied in many countries.

If political leaders want respect, they will begin by enforcing the global rule of law.

When work is not underpinned by social protection, people risk falling into poverty traps.

There's not much more of an honour - to work for, and with, working people.

In terms of emerging economies, we absolutely believe that the prescription is social protection and a minimum wage on which people can live.

The rules of the global economy are rigged against those who have to work to earn a living and in favour of multinational corporations and the ultra-rich.

If there are not jobs or adequate forms of social protection, there is not enough income to create the consumption base that drives demand and sustainable economic growth.

The corporate community understands the need for rules. Indeed, it argues for regulation to protect intellectual property, physical property rights, and contract law. So why does it oppose global regulation to protect people and the environment?

When we see the banks get bailed out with seemingly no consequences while ordinary people pay the price with job and wage cuts through austerity measures, who could blame a person for wondering where the loyalties of their elected leaders really lie?

When governments are cowed or simply don't care to enforce fundamental human and labour rights or to ensure corporate tax is paid so that they can invest in social protection and in the health and education of their people, they cede control to corporate greed.

Many governments and corporations take no moral responsibility for the enslavement of migrant workers and freely do business with states built on the back of slave labour. Illicit financial flows and tax evasion are ignored in the interests of some nations and their corporations, stripping the tax base that is so vital for essential services.

If you think the dominant orthodoxy - shrink your economy, render workers jobless, impoverish families, and still grow - is an oxymoron... then you would be right.

We may be living in a world of disposable electronics, but working people are not disposable commodities.

When corporations refuse to practice due diligence by not establishing grievance mechanisms for remedy of abuses against the hidden 94% of their workforce in their global supply chains, they perpetuate a depraved model of profit-making that has driven inequality to a level now seen as a global risk in itself.

The cycle of jobless youth, uncertainty about the future, depressing consumption, and weak investment and stresses on both the supply and demand side of economies are all thorns in the wheel of capitalism.

We need economic growth, yes, but growth can be jobless, so a sustainable development framework for employment must include a job creation strategy.

If multilateral institutions cannot bring about peace and the rule of law because of the vested interests of their members, then both national democracy and global governance will continue to be rocked by crises.

All business must have a social license to operate.

Democracy is becoming collateral damage in a world where global risks have been ignored or exacerbated by those with the power to act.

Limiting the destructive risk-taking by large financial firms and banks which are 'too big to fail' is needed.

Wealth is being generated off the back of oppression and abuse.

When working men and women have secure jobs with living wages and social protection, they can invest in the economy at levels which will increase demand and help overcome the twin challenges of ageing populations and economic stagnation.

What Qatar chose is a system where a worker is owned by his employer. When your employer forces you to live in squalor, makes you work longest hours in extreme heat, doesn't allow you to change jobs, doesn't pay your wages on time, abuses you physically and psychologically, you have no way out, you can't leave. You are trapped.

Care work contributes enormously to the well-being of our societies and to the sustainability of our economies.

There is no doubt that the participation of women in the workforce is a serious productivity boost, but to enable this ambition, there must be investment in care - child care, aged care, disability care, health, and education - which are essential social support structures to enable women to work.

Banks don't come with an internal switch that says, 'Enough! Let's slow down a little.' Or, 'Let's just share this wealth around for the benefit of the community now.' That's the job of government.

Securing a sustainable future will take all of us working together.

Stark inequality, poverty, and unemployment are driving increased social unrest and, consequently, social and economic risk. Environmental deterioration may well intensify social inequality.

You can't deny that if you have, you know, people who think it's okay to talk about women, to disregard the rights of workers, we're in trouble as an inclusive world.

My job is to represent working people.

You'd never plan a career like I've had.

Creating a Financial Transactions Tax would go a long way to curbing short-term speculative trading, including high-frequency trading.

Until you separate the speculative behaviour of the financial sector from the real economy and the financing of the real economy, then we are not going to see the kind of stability or the capacity to drive genuine, income-led growth as opposed to debt-fuelled, speculative behaviour.

We all need to work together, because there are no jobs on a dead planet; there is no equity without rights to decent work and social protection, no social justice without a shift in governance and ambition, and, ultimately, no peace for the peoples of the world without the guarantees of sustainability.

Globalization can be shaped to ensure that people matter.

A new business model based on old principles of social justice where people matter - now that's a revolutionary way to reduce inequality.

As we contemplate a world which is still choosing to deploy technological innovation in a way that deepens inequality and divisions within and between nations, we need to set global foundations back on track.

Market-led globalization is leading to a race to the bottom, where efficiency and profit matter more than a fair share for working people.

#MeToo shows this bias is systemic, that people get away with violence against women, get away with discrimination - whether in work or society in general - because, for too long, silence has been the answer.

There is a great deal of sympathy amongst workers for the Occupy Wall Street movement. We understand their frustration.

We need to decarbonise our societies and economies.

If people do not have jobs, they do not have a secure income, and they do not have a sense of security.

A new model of business and economic development must ensure everybody's sons and daughters are treated as we would expect for our own.

When women are expected to bear the burden of unpaid work, everyone loses.

Many women drop out of the work force altogether, which holds back our economy with a loss of skills and personnel.

Globalization has much potential. It could be the answer to many of the world's seemingly intractable problems. But this requires strong democratic foundations based on a political will to ensure equity and justice.

Anyone who has lived in an area with high unemployment knows how it erodes social bonds, lowers the resilience of the unemployed and their families, and damages the prospects of the next generation.

I've had an enormously privileged working life.

Climate impacts hit working people first, and with extreme weather events, changing seasons, and rising sea levels, whole communities stand on the front lines.

Collective bargaining, and the fundamental human right, freedom of association, is seen as an anathema to American business, and people just - it doesn't seem to register that there's no universal social safety net that people can touch.