BY GEOFF FRANCIS & PETER HICKS

Tasmanian nurses are fighting back after the state Labor government, under Premier Jim Bacon, closed another hospital, costing 50 jobs. Labor health minister Judy Jackson has announced that she will personally cross the nurses' picket lines to do their job. In some ways we hope she does — one day of real work would probably kill her. This song is for the nurses.

Will you stand with the nurses on the picket line, Or would you be a Judy Jackson scab?
Will you stand by your union comrades every time And pay no heed to bully Bacon's blag?

Will you Labor politicians stop for just a while to think 'bout the folk who put you where you are today?
Or will you slink up to the bosses with a smirk and with a wink
As thoughts of where you came from fade away?

Will you stand with the nurses on the picket line?

You who not so long ago stood where we're standing now,
And lectured us about the class divide,
Is it for the money or the fame or for the power
That now you're standing on the other side?

Will you stand with the nurses on the picket line?

You can mingle with the powerful, you can crawl before the rich,
You can dance their tune and go where you are sent.
Every decent shred within you, every principle you ditch,
Is it worth it to be held in such contempt?

Will you stand with the nurses on the picket line

[The words of this and other topical broadsides can be found on the web in the Radical Songsters On-Line Songbook at <http://www.trump.net.au/~glazfolk>. This site is a resource for keeping alive the radical singing tradition worldwide. Your contributions are warmly welcomed.]

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