Sunday, September 06, 2009

YouTube - Which Side Are You On




Written by Florence Reese and her daughters on the back of a calendar after being roughed up by thugs looking for her husband, who was a union organizer. People were beaten and murdered in this country for working for workplace equality, and some folks have forgotten that, and how important that battle was.


Labor Day, 2009, more Americans are unemployed than any time since the Great Depression. Fewer people are unionized, fewer people have pensions and fewer people have health insurance than any time in our lifetimes. Our government unloads trillions of dollars to the bankers and their wars, and has nothing to spare for honest workers who are losing their homes. It's time to ask the question, "Which side are you on."

Without unions, you have corporate dictatorship. The current health care crisis is a direct result of declining union membership due to exporting of American jobs overseas, sanctioned and orchestrated by both of our major political parties.


Written to the tune of the old Baptist Hymn, Lay The Lillies Low, which, in turn, was written to the tune of an old english ballad.

Which Side Are You On?

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

Chorus:
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

My daddy was a miner
And I'm a miner's son
And I'll stick with the union
Till every battle's won

They say in Harlan County
There are no neutrals there
You'll either be a union man
Or a thug for J.H. Blair

Oh, workers can you stand it?
Oh, tell me how you can
Will you be a lousy scab
Or will you be a man?

Don't scab for the bosses
Don't listen to their lies
Us poor folks haven't got a chance
Unless we organize


-- "The Earth is not dying. She is being murdered, and we know who is killing her and we have their names and addresses."

Utah Phillips

No comments: