Standard (EADGBE)

 oh i would never walk across a picket line

 solidarity forever don't mean just sometimes

so long live the union!

 cross my heart and hope to die

 if I should ever walk across a picket line

well my mother never told me

what was right or what was wrong

she never taught me to play guitar

never taught me to write songs

but one thing that she taught me

i'll remember for all time

and that's that you should never walk

across a picket line

(chorus)

she took me to a factory where the workers were on strike

the company had called in scabs to break the union's might

my mum went to the front and addressed those greedy swine

sayin' “i dare any of you men to walk across this picket line!”

(chorus)

well one of them came forward and he had something to say:

“no woman will stand between me and one day's pay!

i don't care 'bout the others i am taking what is mine”

and with that he tried to walk across our picket line

(chorus)

mom called him a dirty scab, gave him two pieces of her mind

she picked up and she threw every rock that she could find

and when he called the cops on her she kicked his behind

sayin' “that's what you get when you walk across a union's picket line!”

(chorus)

well to this day i can remember what my momma used to say:

“we're fighting for a better world, not just for better pay

and if we stick together then we'll win this fight in time

so long as we don't walk across each other's picket lines”