If • • • •
(with apologies to Rudyard Kipling) If you can force through higher wage increases Than those your fellow-workers have obtained; If you can break the management in pieces When they the rights of unions have dis dained; If you can fire the workers by your talking, No matter whether what you say is true, Although it may inflation be uncorking With ruin for the likes of me and you: If you can call a strike on any pretext, And make sure that the men will heed your call; If you can argue work should not be desexed, Since women should not want to work at all; If you can fight against the righteous master Refusing you rewards you think are due; If you can face a strike that's a disaster, And have the courage not to see it through: If you can find a subtle means of scotching Deals which are aimed at more productive work; If you can see a virtue in clock-watching, And turn a-blind eye on the men who shirk: If you can stop your rival unions poaching The jobs your men traditionally have done, Or on your hard-won membership encroach ing: You'll be a worker's leader then, my son!
Basil Charles
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