The Workers' Song

Come all of you workers who toil night and day

By hand and by brain to earn your pay

Who for centuries long past for no more than your bread

Have bled for your countries and counted your dead

In the factories and mills, in the shipyards and mines

We've often been told to keep up with the times

For our skills are not needed, they've streamlined the job

And with sliderule and stopwatch our pride they have robbed

But when the sky darkens and the prospect is war

Who's given a gun and then pushed to the fore

And expected to die for the land of our birth

When we've never owned one handful of earth?

We're the first ones to starve the first ones to die

The first ones in line for that pie-in-the-sky

And always the last when the cream is shared out

For the worker is working when the fat cat's about

All of these things the worker has done

From tilling the fields to carrying the gun

We've been yoked to the plough since time first began

And always expected to carry the can