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