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 waitin' 'til 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 'til you're 'bout to faint

You may be down and out but you ain't beaten

You can pass out a leaflet and call a meetin'

Talk it over speak your mind

Decide to do somethin' about it

Course the boss may persuade some poor damn fool

To go to your meetin' and act like a stool

But you can always tell a stool though that's a fact

He's got a yaller streak a runnin' 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 sittin' 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 seegar 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 meetin' 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