"Union Dues": Coal Miners Express Their Gratitude to FDR

“Union Dues”: Coal Miners Express Their Gratitude to FDR

In late 1932, the United Mine Workers of America was an organization struggling to survive. Yet by the fall of 1933, with the signing of an agreement with coal operators, it was strong. The miners’ union had finally won a contract that guaranteed it recognition and stability in the hitherto nonunion southern Appalachian coalfields. Section 7(a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act set off the spark of unionization in coal and other industries and many coal miners felt that they owed a debt of gratitude to the man who had become president of the United States in March—Franklin D. Roosevelt. For coal miners, one way of expressing that gratitude was in song. “Union Dues,” collected in the 1940s by folklorist George Korson, used the blues, a musical idiom that had become popular in southern black communities in the 1920s, to explain what President Roosevelt had given coal miners.

President Roosevelt is a friend to the laborin' men,

Gives us the right to organize an' be real union men,

Union, union is all over the wide worl',

Back on the farm an' tobacco barns.

I’m glad I’m a union man: long may it live on.

The union will be livin‘ when I’m dead an’ gone.

I got the union blues, don’t care where I go.

I got the union blues, don’t care where I be.

It’s good for you en' good enough for me;

I’m goin‘ down the road feelin’ mighty glad,

The union is the best friend that labor ever had.

I’m goin‘ to write a letter, goin’ to mail it in the month o' May

I’m goin‘ to write a letter, goin’ to mail it this very day.

I’m goin' to thank the President for that seven-hour day.

I’m goin' to close my song, but won’t close my mind,

I’m goin' to close my song, but won’t close my mind—

That laborin' man was not left behind.

Source: "Union Dues," as recorded by George Korson, Coal Dust on the Fiddle (1943).