Solidarity Forever
©Ralph Chaplin 1915
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
For the Union makes us strong
Chorus
Solidarity forever, solidarity forever
Solidarity forever
For the Union makes us strong
Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong
It is we who ploughed 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 wonders we have made
But the union makes us strong
All the world that's owned by idle drones is ours and ours alone
We have laid the wide foundations, built it skyward stone by stone
It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own
While the union makes us strong
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
In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold
Greater than the might of armies magnified a thousandfold
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old
For the Union makes us strong
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5 comments:
THIS. Emphatically.
Thank you.
aisha
It's a complex thing isn't it? Both extremes are faulty, but without each extreme fighting for it's POV, everything gets horribly skewed in the other direction. I am one of the people who's contract/collective bargaining rights have just been eliminated. I'm afraid we're in for some horrible skewing.
OG, thank you, I marched to this song and others like it, many, many years ago.
Our legislators seem to think they can trample the workers, for how long. ?
Love and warm hugs,
Paul.
OG - Thank you. Both of my parents suffered for the collective bargaining rights of union workers in the 1930s. While there is no question that private and public sector unions are regulated differently, there is a certain, mean-spirited group that seems to be attacking not the issue of whether or not public sector unions have the right to close down government through strikes, but instead collective bargaining in general. The former is a debatable point. The latter is not. I truly appreciate this post. - jcn
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