Melody:  Peter Hicks 1991
Words:  Geoff Francis 1991
Arranged:  Chrissie Shaw

The rhetorical question Geoff posed in this song quite a few years ago is one that the Australian government has been energetically trying to answer. The answer they've offered us is to get the sack and then beg cap in hand for a contract to reinstate us at lower pay, to sleep with the boss if we're pretty and want to keep our job, to work on weekends for whatever rate we can individually negotiate, and to pay heavy fines for holding union meetings. Working people in our country are being insulted and degraded, and our aspirations for dignity are being hypocritically criminalised. As Australian society sinks under the suffocating weight of beige fascism it will never be any easier than it is now to stand up and stand by our union.

Our union's story is there to be seen
We've won many victories we've suffered defeats
But as I turn through the pages and look back through time
There's one single question stands out in my mind
Today we may prosper, today we live free
But if it weren't for the union, where would we be?

It's our union, our union defending our rights
But our union's as strong as our will is to fight
For the union is you and the union is me
So stand up and stand by our union

From it's humble beginnings our union has grown
So no working person need struggle alone
But no gain that's been made has been made without cost
And together we'll see that no gain's ever lost
Take a look at those countries where workers aren't free
If it weren't for the union, where would we be?

Would you choose to go back, working twelve hours a day?
Would you choose to toil more and a pittance be paid?
Will you stand in the union against the new right?
Or do you think on your own you can withstand their might?
The answer is written in our history
If it weren't for the union, where would we be?

They say we've got problems, and the unions they blame
Well, Franco and Pinochet they said the same
If our union they weaken, if our union they break
Then where's our defence from becoming enslaved?
So would you choose bondage above liberty?
If it weren't for the union, where would we be?