Talking Union

Now you want higher wages

Let me tell you what to do

Got to talk to the workers in the shop with you

You got to build you a union, got to make it strong

But if you all stick together, boys, 'twont be long

You'll get shorter hours

Better workin' conditions

Vacations with pay

Take your kids to the seashore

'Cause it ain't quite that simple

I better explain just why you got to ride on the union train

'Cause if you wait for the boss to raise your pay

We'll all be waiting 'til Judgment Day

Y'all be buried

Gone to Heaven

Saint Peter will be the straw boss then, boys

Now, you know you're underpaid, but the boss says you ain't

He speeds up the work 'til you're 'bout to faint

You may be down and out, but you ain't beaten

Pass out a leaflet, call a meetin'

Talk it over

Speak your mind

Decide to do something about it

Course, the boss may persuade some poor damn fool

To go to your meeting and act like a stool

But you can always tell a stool, though, that's a fact

He's got a yeller streak a-runnin' down his back

He doesn't have to stool, you know

He'll always make a good living

On what he takes out of blind men's cups

Well you got a union now, you're sittin' pretty

Put some of the boys on the steering committee

The boss won't listen if one guy squawks

But he's got to listen if the union talks

He'd better

He'll be mighty lonely one of these days

Suppose he's workin' you so hard it's just outrageous

Payin' you all starvation wages

Go to the boss, the boss would yell

"Before I'd raise your pay I'd see you all in Hell"

Well, he's puffing a big cigar, feeling mighty slick

Thinks he's got your union licked

He looks out the window, and what does he see

But a thousand pickets, and they all agree

He's a bastard

Unfair!

Slave driver

Bet he beats his own wife

Now, boys, you've come to the hardest time

The boss will try to bust your picket line

They'll call out the police, the National Guard

Tell you it's a crime to have a union card

They'll raid your meeting, hit ya on the head

Call every one of you a goddamn Red

Unpatriotic

Moscow agents

Bomb throwers, even the kids

Well out in Detroit here's what they found

Out in Frisco here's what they found

Down in Bethlehem here's what they found

Out in Pittsburgh here's what they found

That if you don't let red-baiting break you up

If you don't let stool pigeons break you up

If you don't let vigilantes break you up

And if you don't let race hatred

Break you up you'll win

You know what I mean, take it easy, but take it