F.D.R. on labor unions

"I believe now,as I have all my life,in the right of workers to join unions and to protect their unions." 1943

For public employees, he wasn't quite so enthusiastic. He regarded striking by public workers as a threat to vital government operations.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703837004575013424060649464.html

It should be pointed out that FDR didn't believe public employees had a right to collective bargaining or
the right to strike:

"All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters."

"Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable."

From http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15445