Working For Free

Do ya, do ya want me, want me working for free?
Come on tell me, do you want my money?

Do ya, do ya want me, want me working for free?
I can tell the way you’re walking on me

Do ya, do ya want me, want me down on my knees?
I’m begging you for a wage, please, come on

(You get it, you want it, you take it, you got it
The value, the labor, the profit, the product)

Do ya, do ya want me, want me struggling?
Come on, you think that poverty’s a role play, baby?

(The worker, the smothered Dickensian sucker
The server, subaltern, the self and the other)

Do ya, do ya want me, want me working for free?
You feel entitled to determine my pay, huh?

You want a rock bottom rate ‘cause you’re there to appraise
The value of emotional labor? (the value, the labor, the profit, the product)

Do ya, do ya want me, want me smiling, cosigned (the worker, the smothered Dickensian sucker)
If I bow, is that appropriate behavior? (the server, subaltern, the self and the other)

You know, I hear the word of god through the customer’s mouth (the givers, the tippers, the buyers, the users)
I survive by the kindness of strangers (the bosses, the wonders, the hired, the doers)
This precarious wager, the structural danger (you get it, you want it, you take it, you got it)
The uncertain nature, the conscious erasure (the value, the labor, the profit, the product)
That’s not a bug that’s a feature

When the world’s run through the hands of unpaid labor
Excess income trickles up from wealthy interns
Who can afford to work for gratis and accumulated status
Skipping line to a management wage while their bills are all paid

[Instrumental break]

(The givers, the tippers, the buyers, the users
The bosses, the owners, the hired, the doers
The keepers, the takers, the havers, the favored
The leisured, contempt for precarious labor
The worker, the smothered Dickensian sucker
The server, subaltern, the self and the other
Directors, employers, and lobbying lawyers
United in making survival untenable)