Top 203 Quotes & Sayings by Tom Perez - Page 3

I consider Keith Ellison a friend.

Too many jobs don't pay enough to get by, let alone get ahead.

If I don't get something done at the office at 4:30 in the afternoon, I can go back to it at 10:00 in the evening.

The politics of division are not what we want in New Jersey and Virginia and elsewhere.

Improving veterans' employment is an all-hands-on-deck enterprise. We work with the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, with private sector partners and others.

Misclassification is a serious problem in construction as well as other industries, and it is exacerbated by increasingly fissured employment structures where work is contracted and subcontracted away from the core company.

Donald Trump, you don't stand for our values.

It's time to update our workplace policies to reflect the realities of the 21st-century labor force and to support modern working families. It's time to continue our nation's long commitment to supporting unemployed workers by extending emergency unemployment compensation.

I remember a good friend of mine whose father worked at Bethlehem Steel for 40 years with just a high school degree. That was a remarkable pathway to prosperity that sustained generations of working families.

What you learn growing up in a place like Buffalo is that your job isn't just your paycheck, it's your identity. It doesn't just give you dollars, it gives you dignity.

Here's the reality: when Hillary Clinton won the nomination, the DNC handed her insufficient and substandard tools for success.

How can we say we're for family values when so many women in the United States have to jeopardize their livelihood to take a few weeks off from work after giving birth? Should a man have to sacrifice his economic security to take care of his sick mother or his wife returning wounded from active duty?

The Democratic Party has learned from the terrible mistakes of the past. Our platform requires that we honor, fulfill, and strengthen the federal government's trust responsibility to American Indians. We take this responsibility seriously.

If you're going to be a big tent party as we are, and you're going to help elect democrats who have generated support in their communities... the will of those voters is the will that we must respect.

Our economic future and our energy future are one in the same, and it's a future America can't shrink from. We must shape it, just as we've always done. We have to protect our planet from the threat of climate change and ensure that workers have the skills to compete for good middle-class jobs.

To reward work, to grow the middle class and strengthen the economy, to give millions of Americans the respect they deserve... It's time to raise the minimum wage.

The 3.5 million people in Puerto Rico are American citizens. They deserve fair and equal treatment as Americans.

Growing up in Buffalo, I saw shuttered factories that once housed thousands of steel manufacturing jobs. I remember the hollowing-out of the middle class in our community. I witnessed hope turn to hardship as a once-thriving city reckoned with a fast-changing world.

Michigan is a state we should have won in 2016, and we didn't, and I want to understand why.

Costco pays their workers good wages with benefits while selling good products at competitive prices and remaining quite profitable.

Our universal message of access to economic opportunity resonates with the ironworker in northeastern Ohio and the immigrant in South Florida. And we sometimes have a relationship deficit with our voters, because we're not communicating that message.

Our message in rural America is just as powerful as it is in urban America. But because we haven't been a physical presence there in any sustained way, we have a lot of voters there who no longer believe that the Democratic Party is working for them.

The most important family value of all is time with your family.

Civil rights activists and union activists shared not just common values and objectives but also common enemies.

The King Holiday is a celebration of many things - his pursuit of racial justice, his commitment to non-violent resistance, his belief in service and doing for others. But you might also call it the other Labor Day.

Misclassification means workers are denied not just minimum wage and overtime but other social safety net protections like workers' compensation and unemployment insurance.

The Republican playbook is voter suppression.

When you put more money in the pockets of working families, they spend it on groceries, gas, school supplies, and other goods and services. And that helps businesses grow and create jobs.

The theme of the Labor Department's centennial is 'Then, Now, Next.' So in honoring Esther Peterson, we look not just to the past but to the future, acknowledging with honesty and a sense of purpose the lingering challenges we still face and the distance we've yet to travel before equality is truly a reality in the lives of all women.

We're the party that has fought for Medicare. We're the party that has fought for Social Security. The Republicans have tried to privatize Social Security and voucherize Medicare.

It's wrong that so many hardworking people - people working full-time, or even multiple jobs - need public assistance just to survive.

When I taught a civil rights class at the University of Maryland Law School, I would do an exercise with my students. I'd write 'civil rights' on the board and ask them to tell me what immediately came to mind.

It's not only inhumane to treat Puerto Ricans as second-class citizens. It's deeply un-American.

Frankly, what we need to be looking at is whether this election was rigged by Donald Trump and his buddy Vladimir Putin.

We can't understand what we've accomplished on civil rights without telling the story of Bayard Rustin. And now, we must write the next chapter in the American civil rights story by drawing strength and inspiration from his moral courage.

You can't eat cake and lose weight.

We have to have a conversation where we bring in all the stakeholders and say, 'What is the vision of the Democratic Party?'

Sometimes you have to push the envelope in pursuit of the right thing.

As Republicans try to trample on our most sacred freedoms, Democrats will do everything we can to end discrimination and protect the one right that preserves all others - the right to vote.

I was in the U.K. and Germany and went to Volkswagen and learned about their apprenticeship model - young people become paid apprentices in trades. It's not a coincidence that youth unemployment is far lower in Germany than the United States because there are paid opportunities for young people to get experience.

When you recruit good candidates and you have a good message and you have energy and organization and partnership, you always have a fighting chance.

We're the party that's fought for increased wages, fought for the union movement, fought to make sure that collective bargaining is not eviscerated, it's strengthened. And when we communicate those messages, we succeed.

Infrastructure done right can help working people; infrastructure done wrong is just more money for private equity.

For the purposes of the FMLA, marriage will now be determined based on where the couple got married, not on where an employee lives. This is called a 'place of celebration' rule.

As America prepared for war in 1941, discrimination largely shut black Americans out of job opportunities in the growing defense industry.

Dr. King's last campaign was a labor struggle. Many people are aware that King was assassinated in Memphis in the spring of 1968. Less well-known is what drew him there: solidarity with city sanitation workers, who, without the benefit of union representation, were rising up to protest humiliating pay and deplorable working conditions.

Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman's right to make her own choices about her body and her health. That is not negotiable.

There is no price tag on an American life - whether it's in Florida, Texas, or Puerto Rico.

You're more likely to see someone fatally struck by lightning than witness a case of in-person voter fraud.

Extending emergency unemployment benefits isn't just the right thing to do for our families - it's the smart thing to do for our economy.

When you cut investments in worker training, you're cutting investments in the middle class.

Smart growth is having the courage to say yes and having the courage to say no.

Talk about the issues that matter most to people.

From the new hate crimes law to the repeal of DOMA and 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' to the emerging popular support for marriage equality, we are making progress at breakneck speed. As someone who has dedicated most of my career to civil rights law, I am deeply moved by this sea change and proud to have done my part.

Federal government has been a gateway to the middle class for people of color for generations.

One of the most pervasive and damaging trends we are seeing in the 21st-century workplace is the deliberate misclassification of workers by employers looking to shift responsibility and cut costs.

Tampa Electric has used apprenticeships since 1978 to make sure its workforce is the best in the business - trained, prepared, and productive. Apprenticeships improve its bottom line and give the company a competitive advantage.

I am proud of our diversity, and when you attack the federal workforce, you are having significant impact on women - many of whom are single moms working to support their family - and you're having a significant impact on communities of color.

Helping veterans isn't just a part of my job. For me, it's personal. It's in my blood.

Every president since Nixon has embraced a policy of 'self-determination without termination' - the idea that Native Americans are best equipped to govern themselves. Trump is breaking with this position.