Union membership among American workers fell to 11.3 percent last year, down from its peak of 35 percent in 1954. As a liberal Democrat I would bemoan this fact had I not negotiated with labor unions. Negotiating with unions is comparable to negotiating with the Genovese family except the leaders of the later are more competent, diligent and trustworthy.
I'm not worried about labor's decline, but I am concerned about its effect on music. As with the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, Labor lost the war but had the best songs: Joe Hill, We Shall Not Be Moved, Solidarity Forever, Union Maid, etc.
Corporations don't do well with songs. Check out Ernst and Young's recruitment song Oh Happy Day, which demonstrates that none of the whitebread dweebs at E&Y ever had a date in high school:
Oh Happy Day
Oh Happy Day
When Ernst and Young
When Ernst and Young
When Ernst and Young
Slowed me a better way
No to be upstaged, the accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers countered with its hip-hop version of Downright Global to prove they were even more clueless that Ernst and Young;
Welcome to the firm
That is known for
Innovation
Imagination
Fascination
Total global integration
PriceWaterhouseCoopers
PwC
To celebrate its merger with MBNA, Bank of America produced a cover of U2's "One":
It is even better
Now that we're the same
Two great companies come together
Now MBNA is B of A
Of course none of these can compete with legendary classic My Bathroom by toilet manufacturer American Standard:
My bathroom, my bathroom
Is a private kind of place
A special kind of space
To save music from the ravages of the corporate barbarians, we must repurpose, re-engineer and right-size obsolete labor songs. We can then make music relevant to today's exciting, challenging and rewarding corporate world.
We Shall Not Be Cured
The CEOs behind us
Cutting our healthcare
The CFOs behind us
Raising our co-pay
We shall not, we shall not be cured
We shall not, we shall not be cured
Just like a tree that's standing in foul water
We shall not be cured
Good Riddance Joe Hill
I dreamed I shot Joe Hill last night,
and collected my bounty
The Corporate Maid
Oh, you can scare me, I'm switching to the bosses
I'm working as a scab; I'm switching to the bosses
Oh, you can scare me, I'm switching to the bosses,
I'm working as a scab 'til the day I die.
Solidarity forever!
When our corporate vision and values
through associates' blood shall run,
There can be no power greater
anywhere beneath the sun.
Yet what force on earth is weaker
than one feeble employee?
But the corporation makes us strong.