Category Archives: Labor

Which Side Are You On?

  • old hymn tune, adapted by Kay Thode

Come all of you good workers,
Good news to you I’ll tell
Of how the good old union
Has come in here to dwell

  • Chorus:   Which side are you on? (4 times)

Come all of you stockholders,
Vote for a raise in pay.
It’s all those old retirees
Made Boeing great today.

  • Chorus

It really is the workers
Who make you all your dough,
Let them share the profits,
The only way to go.

  • Chorus

So listen to our song now,
Do the right thing today,
Give retirees and increase.
Help us to make their day.

  • Chorus

Union Maid

  • tune: Redwing
    Words by Woodie Guthrie

There once was a union maid
Who never was afraid
Of the goons and the ginks and the company finks
And the deputy sheriffs who made the raid.
She went to the union hall
When a meeting it was called,
And when the company boys came round
She always stood her ground.

  • Chorus:
    Oh, you can’t scare me, I’m stickin’ to the union,
    I’m stickin’ to the union, I’m stickin’ to the union
    Oh, you can’t scare me, I’m stickin’ to the union,
    I’m stickin’ to the union ‘til the day I die.

This union mad was wise
To the tricks of the company spies.
She couldn’t be fooled by the company stools—
She’s always organize the guys.
She’d always get her way
When she struck for higher pay.
She’d show her card to the company guard,
And this is what she’d say:

  • Chorus

You women who want to be free
Take a little tip from me:
Break outa that mold we’ve all been sold—
You got a fighting history!
The fight for women’s rights
With workers must unit.
Like Mother Jones, move those bones
To the front of every fight!

  • Chorus

We modern union maids
Are also not afraid
To walk the line, leave our jobs behind,
And we’re not just the Ladies Aide.
We fight for equal pay,
And we will have our say.
We’re workers too, the same as you,
And fight the union way.

  • Chorus

Solidarity Forever

  • tune: John Brown’s Body
    The People’s Songbook

When the union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun,
Yet what force on Earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one—
But the union makes us strong!

  • Chorus:
    Solidarity forever! (3 times)
    For the union makes us strong.

It is we who plowed the prairies, built the cities where they trade,
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid.
Now we stand outcast and starving’mid the wonder we have made,
But the union makes us strong!

  • Chorus

It is we who wash the dishes, scrub the floors and case the dirt,
Feed the kids and send ‘em off to school and then we go to work.
While we work for half the wages for a boss that likes to flirt,
But the union makes us strong!

  • Chorus

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong!

  • Chorus

In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the might of armies magnified a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old,
For the union makes us strong!

  • Chorus

Put It on the Ground

  • Words, Ray Glaser; Music, Bill Wolff;
    Copyright 1937, People’s Songs, Inc.

Oh, if you want a raise in pay, all you have to do,
Go and ask the boss for it, and he will give it to you,
Yes, he will give it to you my boy, he will give it to you,
A raise in pay without delay, oh, he will give it to you.

  • Chorus:
    Ohhh, put it on the ground, spread it all around,
    Dig it with a hoe, it will make your flowers grow.

For men who own the industries I’m shedding bitter tears.
They haven’t made a single dime in over thirty years.
Not one thin dime in all that time, In over thirty years.

  • Chorus

The men who own the industries, they own no bonds and stocks,
They own no yachts and limousines, or gems the size of rocks.
They own no big estates with pools, or silken BVDs.
Because they pay the working man such fancy salaries!

  • Chorus

Nike Town

  • tune: Chinatown, My Chinatown
    by Kay Thode

Nike shoes and Starbucks beans
Make millions a day
But workers who produce them
Get starvation pay.

One dollar fifty a day
Is the workers take
For the hundred eighty buck shoes
That Nike makes.

Bean pickers for Starbucks
Also get the shaft
One dollar twenty a day
Forces them to fast.

Nike town, oh, Nike town,
Why don’t you behave,
Share your mammoth profits
With those who sweat and slave.

Starbucks, Starbucks, coffee czars,
You can also share,
With those who pick your beans
Wages that are fair.

Let’s boycott these products
Till there’s decent pay
Corporations can afford
Sixty bucks a day.

15 Now

  • Tune: Sixteen Tons
    By Jo-Hanna Read

You work hard for all your life.
And so do your children, your husband or wife.
You wait on tables, you sweep the floor.
No matter how hard ya work, you’re poorer than poor

You work for min’mum wage and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
The poverty level is more than you earn.
While the company bosses have money to burn!

We say 15Now is the way to go.
We need it right now, no need to go slow.
Deducting tips and benefits will not do!
If you think that’s fair, you don’t have a clue.

You work for min’mum wage and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
The poverty level is more than you earn.
While the company bosses have money to burn!

Big business is worried that we’ll get this through,
So they started OneSeattle with their big business crew.
Now they’re gettin’ small businesses to front their lines
With misinformation and downright lies.

You work for min’mum wage and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
The poverty level is more than you earn.
While the company bosses have money to burn!

There’s No Business Like Clothes Business

  • by Shirley Morrison
  • tune: There’s No Business Like Show Business

There’s no business like clothes business,
The best business we know.
New clothes are so hip and sexy!
Throw out last year’s wardrobe, toss it all!
Nowhere can you get that special feeling,
Like when you’re shopping at the mall.

There’s no business like clothes business,
The best business we know.
HUSKIES, GAP and NIKE make you feel so great!
But those poor workers, what a fate—
Starving wages, bad conditions they endure—
But, shop on for the show!!!

Saints- Labor

  • tune: When the Saints Come Marching In

When workers rise and organize
When workers rise and organize,
How I want to be in the number,
When workers rise and organize.

  • Variations:

When the union’s voice is heard…

When women’s work gets equal pay…

When trade is local, green and fair…

When WTO has been replaced…