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Now if you want higher wages, let me tell you what to do;
You 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, now, boys ‘twont be long
You'll get shorter hours
Better working conditions
Vacations with pay
Take your kids to the seashore
It ain't quite this simple, so 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 till Judgment Day;
We'll all he buried – gone to Heaven –
Saint Peter'll be the straw boss then
Now, you know you're underpaid, but the boss says you ain't;
He speeds up the work till you're ‘bout to faint
You may be down and out, but you ain't beaten
Pass out a leaflet and 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 yellow streak running down his back;
He doesn't have to stool – he'll always make a good living
On what he takes out of blind men's cups
You got a union now; you're sitting pretty;
Put some of the boys on the steering committee
The boss won't listen when one man squawks
But he's got to listen when the union talks
He better –
He'll be mighty lonely one of these days
Suppose they're working you so hard it's just outrageous
They're paying you all starvation wages;
You go to the boss, and the boss would yell
"Before I'd raise your pay I'd see you all in Hell." Well, he's puffing a big see–gar and feeling mighty slick
He 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 wife
Now, boy, you've come to the hardest time;
The boss will try to bust your picket line
He'll call out the police, the National Guard;
They'll tell you it's a crime to have a union card
They'll raid your meeting, hit you on the head
Call every one of you a goddamn Red –
Unpatriotic – Moscow agents –
Bomb throwers, even the kids
But out in Detroit here's what they found
And out in Frisco here's what they found
And out in Pittsburgh here's what they found
And down in Bethlehem 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.
What I mean
Take it easy – but take it!