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Now, if you want higher wages let me tell you what to do |
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You got to talk to the workers in the shop with you |
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You got to build you a union, got to make it strong |
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But if you all stick together, boys, it won't be long |
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You get shorter hours, better working conditions |
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Vacations with pay. Take your kids to the seashore |
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It ain't quite this simple, so I better explain |
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Just why you got to ride on the union train |
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'Cause if you wait for the boss to raise your pay |
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We'll all be a-waitin' 'til Judgment Day |
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We'll all be buried, gone to heaven |
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St. Peter'll be the straw boss then |
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Now you know you're underpaid but the boss says you ain't |
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He speeds up the work 'til you're 'bout to faint |
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You may be down and out, but you ain't beaten |
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You can pass out a leaflet and call a meetin' |
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Talk it over, speak your mind |
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Decide to do somethin' about it |
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Course, the boss may persuade some poor damn fool |
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To go to your meetin' and act like a stool |
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But you can always tell a stool, though, that's a fact |
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He's got a yaller streak a-runnin' down his back |
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He doesn't have to stool, he'll always get along |
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On what he takes out of blind men's cups |
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You got a union now, and you're sittin' pretty |
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Put some of the boys on the steering committee |
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The boss won't listen when one guy squawks |
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But he's got to listen when the union talks |
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He'd better, be mighty lonely |
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Everybody decide to walk out on him |
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Suppose they're working you so hard it's just outrageous |
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And they're paying you all starvation wages |
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You go to the boss and the boss would yell |
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"Before I raise your pay I'd see you all in hell." |
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Well, he's puffing a big cigar, feeling mighty slick |
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'Cause he thinks he's got your union licked |
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Well, he looks out the window and what does he see |
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But a thousand pickets, and they all agree |
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He's a bastard, unfair, slavedriver |
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Bet he beats his wife |
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Now, boys, you've come to the hardest time |
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The boss will try to bust your picket line |
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He'll call out the police, the National Guard |
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They'll tell you it's a crime to have a union card |
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They'll raid your meetin', they'll hit you on the head |
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They'll call every one of you a goddam red |
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Unpatriotic, Japanese spies, sabotaging national defense |
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But out at Ford, here's what they found |
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And out at Vultee, here's what they found |
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And out at Allis-Chalmers, here's what they found |
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And down at Bethlehem, here's what they found |
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That if you don't let red-baiting break you up |
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And if you don't let stoolpigeons break you up |
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And if you don't let vigilantes break you up |
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And if you don't let race hatred break you up |
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You'll win. What I mean, take it easy, but take it |
