Talking Union - Almanac Singers

Written by：Almanac Singers

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 won't he 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 hut the boss says you ain't

He speeds up the work

Till you're about to faint

You may he 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 get long

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 everybady

Dicide work out on him

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

Seegar 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 own 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 Japanese biees

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