The Workers' Song Lyrics

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