Eight hours

Union Songs

For this assignment, you are to read the lyrics of each song. After reading the lyrics you are to assume the persona of a laborer, Union Representative, or family member of a laborer. Write your own song, poem, or list of demands you would like to see happen. You may include phrases or excerpts from one or more of the songs below or you may write all original words. Your piece must be at least 8 lines long.

Eight hours (1878)

Jesse H. Jones and I.G. Blanchard

We mean to make things over,

We are tired of toil for naught,

With but bare enough to live upon,

And never an hour for thought;

We want to feel the sunshine.

And we want to smell the flowers,

We are sure that God has will’d it,

And we mean to have eight hours.

We’re summoning our forces

From the shipyard, shop, and mill:

Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest.

Eight hours for what we will!

The beasts that graze the hillside,

And the birds that wander free,

In the life that God has meted

Have a better lot than we..

Oh! hands and hearts are weary,

And homes are heavy with dole;

If our life’s to be filled with drudgery,

What need of a human soul!

Shout, Shout the lusty rally

From the shipyard, shop, and mill,

Eight hours, Etc.

The voice of God within us

Is calling us to stand

Erect, as is becoming

To the work of His right hand.

Should he, to whom the Maker

His glorious image gave,

The meanest of his creatures crouch,

A bread-and butter slave!

Let the shout ring down the valleys

And echo from ev’ry hill,

Eight hours, etc.

Talking Union

Pete Seeger

Now you want higher wages, let me tell you what to do

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 won’t be long

You get shorter hours

Betting workin conditions

Vacations with pay, take the kids to the seashore

Course it ain’t quite that 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 till judgment day

We’ll all be buried

Gone to heaven

St. Peter will be the straw boss then boys

Now you know you’re underpaid but the boss says you ain’t

He speeds up the work til you’re bound to faint

You may be down-n-out

But you ain’t beaten

Pass out a leaflet, 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 yellow streak running down his back

He doesn’t have to stool you know

He’ll always make a good living

On what he takes out of blind men’s cups

Well you got a union now

You’re sitting pretty

Put some of the boys on the steering committee

The boss won’t listen if one guy squawks

But he’s got to listen if the union talks

He’d better

He‘ll be mighty lonely one of these days

Suppose he’s working you so hard it just outrageous

Paying you all starvation wages

You go to the boss, the boss would yell

“Before I raise your pay, I’d see you all in Hell.”

Well he’s puffin a big cigar, feeling mighty slick

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 boys you come to the hardest time

The boss will try to bust your picket line

He’ll call out the police, the National Guard

Tell you it’s a crime to have a union guard

They raid a meeting

Hit you on the head

Call everyone of you god damn Red

You’re unpatriotic

Moscow agents

Bomb throwers, even the kids

Well out in Detroit here’s what they found

Down in Pittsburgh here’s what they found

Down in Bethlehem here’s what they found

Out in ‘Frisco 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 race hatred break you up

If you don’t let vigilantes break you up

You’ll win

What I mean take it easy

But take it

Which Side Are You On? (1987)

Florence Reece

Which side are you on boys?

Which side are you on?

Tell me which side are you on boys?

Which side are you on?

They say in Harlan county

There are no neutrals there,

You’ll either be a union man,

Or a thug for J.H. Blair.

Which side are you on boys?

Which side are you on?

Tell me which side are you on boys?

Which side are you on?

My daddy was a miner

And I’m a miner’s son

He’ll be with you fellow workers

Until the battles won

Which side are you on?

Oh workers can you stand it

Tell me how you can

Will you be a lousy scab

Or will you be a man

Which side are you on?

Tell me which side are you on?

Which side are you on?

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

Which side are you on boys?

Which side are you on?

Tell me which side are you on boys?

Which side are you on?

Union Burying Ground (1946)
Woodie Guthrie

I see they’re lowering right new coffin,

I see they’re letting down right new coffin,