G C
Now, if you want higher wages let me tell you what to do
D7 G
You got to talk to the workers in the shop with you.
C
You got to build you a union, got to make it strong,
D7
But if you all stick together, boys, it won't be long.
G C
You get shorter hours, better working conditions,
D7 G
Vacations with pay. Take your kids to the seashore.
[Verse]
G C
It ain't quite this simple, so I better explain
D7 G
Just why you got to ride on the union train.
C
'Cause if you wait for the boss to raise your pay,
D7
We'll all be a-waitin' 'til Judgment Day.
G C
We'll all be buried, gone to heaven,
D7 G
St. Peter'll be the straw boss then.
[Verse]
G C
Now you know you're underpaid but the boss says you ain't;
D7 G
He speeds up the work 'til you're 'bout to faint.
C
You may be down and out, but you ain't beaten,
D7
You can pass out a leaflet and call a meetin'.
G C
Talk it over, speak your mind,
D7 G
Decide to do somethin' about it.
[Verse]
G C
Course, the boss may persuade some poor damn fool
D7 G
To go to your meetin' and act like a stool.
C
But you can always tell a stool, though, that's a fact,
D7
He's got a yellow streak a-runnin' down his back.
G C
He doesn't have to stool, he'll always get along
D7 G
On what he takes out of blind men's cups.
[Verse]
G C
You got a union now, and you're sittin' pretty,
D7 G
Put some of the boys on the steering committee.
C
The boss won't listen when one guy squawks,
D7
But he's got to listen when the union talks.
G C
He'd better, be mighty lonely
D7 G
If everybody decide to walk out on him.
[Verse]
G C
Suppose they're working you so hard it's just outrageous
D7 G
And they're paying you all starvation wages.
C
You go to the boss and the boss would yell,
D7 G
"Before I raise your pay I'd see you all in hell."
G C
Well, he's puffing a big seegar, feeling mighty slick
D7 G
'Cause he thinks he's got your union licked.
C
Well, he looks out the window and what does he see
D7
But a thousand pickets, and they all agree:
G C D7
He's a bastard, unfair, slavedriver,
G
Bet he beats his wife!
[Verse]
G C
Now, boys, you've come to the hardest time.
D7 G
The boss will try to bust your picket line.
C
He'll call out the police, the National Guard,
D7
They'll tell you it's a crime to have a union card.
G C
They'll raid your meetin', they'll hit you on the head,
D7
They'll call every one of you a goddam red,
G C D7 G
Unpatriotic, Japanese spies, sabotaging national defense!
[Verse]
G C
But out at Ford, here's what they found,
D7 G
And out in Pittsburgh, here's what they found,
G C
And out at Allis-Chalmers, here's what they found,
D7 G
And down at Bethlehem, here's what they found:
C
That if you don't let red-baiting break you up,
D7 G
And if you don't let stoolpigeons break you up,
C
And if you don't let vigilantes break you up,
D7
And if you don't let race hatred break you up,
[Outro]
G N.C.
You'll win. What I mean, take it easy, but take it!
