Friday's Labor Folklore 
Con Carbon, Minstrel of the Mine Patch
The Union Buster 
(Tune: "Oh Susannah")

 

Well now let me introduce myself -- I can't disclose my name.

I'm a management consultant, union-busting is my game.

I'm a master of the con job, I'm an expert at the hoax,

And I make my living stealing bread from the mouths of working folks.

 

CHORUS:

I'm a union-buster, the bosses' trusty aide.

I help keep their employees overworked and underpaid.

 

In the old days we used gun thugs, we used ginks and finks and goons.

Nowadays we use fancy words but sing the same old tune.

Pitting folks against each other, spreading hatred, fear and lies,

Cutting down the hopes of workers who rise up to organize. CHORUS

 

There's no tactic I won't stoop to, there's no trick I haven't tried.

To intimidate and infiltrate, to conquer and divide.

I'll wear the union down with litigation and delay,

And all the while I'm raking in a thousand bucks a day. CHORUS

 

When I was young, I used to fight with kids one-half my size.

Pull the legs of bugs and spiders and the wings off butterflies.

Now I've grown to be a man, I haven't changed at all,

I'm still stepping on the underdog, the humble and the small. CHORUS

 

Have you ever heard this story -- God was working in his lab,

And from some hateful substance he made my good friend the scab.

Well, he gave some of that awful stuff a graduate degree,

He dressed it in a three-piece suit and that's how he made me.

REPEAT CHORUS

 

Lyrics by Paul McKenna, copyright 1983.

(Paul McKenna, Research Director for SEIU Local 503, lives in Corvallis, Oregon.  He has been writing labor and political songs - mostly parodies - since 1976.)     

Diversity Training for Managers
Did you hear about the group of managers who recently participated in a diversity training program?
Now they can say "shut up and get back to work"
in 3 different languages. 

Spirit of the Great Heart

(music video) 

Johnny Clegg and Friends