The labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign for better working conditions and treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour relations. Trade unions are collective organizations within societies, organized for the purpose of representing the interests of workers and the working class. Many ruling class individuals and political groups may also be active in and part of the labour movement.

In some countries, especially the United Kingdom and Australia the labour movement is understood to encompass a formal "political wing", frequently known by the name labour party or workers' party, which complements the aforementioned "industrial wing".

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Avram Noam Chomsky (/ˈnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher,cognitive scientist, historian, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and a major figure of analytic philosophy. His work has influenced fields such as computer science, mathematics, and psychology.

Ideologically identifying with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism, Chomsky is known for his critiques of U.S. foreign policy and contemporary capitalism, and he has been described as a prominent cultural figure. His media criticism has included Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), co-written with Edward S. Herman, an analysis articulating the propaganda model theory for examining the media.

According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992, and was the eighth most cited source overall. Chomsky is the author of over 100 books. He is credited as the creator or co-creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, the universal grammar theory, and the Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem.

Jane F. McAlevey (born October 12, 1964 in New York City, New York) is a union and community organizer, educator and author.

Jane McAlevey has been involved in social movements and political campaigns throughout her entire life. McAlevey was the youngest of seven children, and her mother died of breast cancer when she was not yet in kindergarten. Her father was a locally elected politician—the county executive of Rockland County—who had innovated progressive land use planning concepts in suburban New York. As a little girl, she was exposed to raucous campaign politics.

By junior high school she was engaging in politics of her own, organizing student strikes and walk-outs over issues ranging from stopping nuclear energy to the possible reinstatement of the draft.

While at the State University of New York at Buffalo, in the spring of 1984 she was elected student government president at age 19, sweeping all six offices with her slate of candidates. She went on to be the president of the Student Association of the State University of New York (SASU), one of its most effective presidents. She orchestrated the takeover of the SUNY business office which resulted in the SUNY trustees voting to divest the university system from entities doing business in South Africa.

Jerry Tucker (born November 1, 1925) is a former American child actor, most notable for appearing as the "rich kid" in the Our Gang short subjects series semi-regularly from 1931 to 1938. Tucker first appeared in the 1931 Our Gang short Shiver My Timbers. Then, he also appeared in many Our Gang episodes after that and left the series in the 1938 Our Gang short Three Men in a Tub.

In addition to his Our Gang appearances, Tucker appeared in the Marie Dressler film Prosperity, again as a spoiled rich kid. He also appeared as one of Mother Peep's children in the 1934 Laurel & Hardy feature film March of the Wooden Soldiers.

Tucker went on to serve in the United States Navy during World War II and the Korean War. He later married his wife Myra and had a long successful career with RCA before retiring.

Tucker is one of the few living Our Gangers from the original series. Other surviving members are Mildred Kornman, Marianne Edwards, Jean Darling, Mickey Gubitosi, Sidney Kibrick, and Jackie Lynn Taylor.

Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922 – January 27, 2010) was an American historian, academic, author, playwright, and social activist. Before and during his tenure as a political science professor at Boston University from 1964-88 he wrote more than 20 books, which included his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United States. He wrote extensively about the civil rights and anti-war movements, as well as of the labor history of the United States. His memoir, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train, was also the title of a 2004 documentary about Zinn's life and work.

Zinn was born to a Jewish immigrant family in Brooklyn. His father, Eddie Zinn, born in Austria-Hungary, emigrated to the U.S. with his brother Samuel before the outbreak of World War I. Howard's mother Jenny Zinn emigrated from the Eastern Siberian city of Irkutsk.

Both parents were factory workers with limited education when they met and married, and there were no books or magazines in the series of apartments where they raised their children. Zinn's parents introduced him to literature by sending 10 cents plus a coupon to the New York Post for each of the 20 volumes of Charles Dickens' collected works. He also studied creative writing at Thomas Jefferson High School in a special program established by poet Elias Lieberman.