Talking Union (Analog Source Remaster 2016)

Talking Union (Analog Source Remaster 2016) - The Almanac Singers

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

Boys it won't be long

You 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 a-waiting till Judgment Day

We'll all be buried gone to heaven

St 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 about to faint

You may be down and out

But you ain't beaten

You can pass out a leaflet

And call a meeting

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 yaller streak a-running down his back

He doesn't have to stool

He'll always get along

On what he takes out of blind men's cups

You got a union now

And you're sitting pretty

Put some of the boys on the steering committee

The boss won't listen

When one guy squawks

But he's got to listen

When the union talks

He'd better be mighty lonely

Everybody decide to walk out on him

Suppose they're working you

So hard It's just outrageous

And they're paying you all starvation wages

You go to the boss

And the boss would yell

Before I raise your pay

I'd see you all in hell

Well he's puffing a big cigar

Feeling mighty slick

'Cause he thinks he's got your union licked

Well he looks out the window

And what does he see

But a thousand pickets and they all agree

He's a bastard unfair slavedriver

Bet he beats his wife

Now boys 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

They'll hit you on the head

They'll call every one of you a goddam red

Unpatriotic Japanese spies

Sabotaging national defense

But out at Ford here's what they found

And out at Vultee here's what they found

And out at Allis-Chalmers

Here's what they found

And down at Bethlehem

Here's what they found

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

And if you don't let stoolpigeons break you up

And 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