10 Songs That Deal with Labor Rights and Hating Your Job – MetalSucks

Labor Day in America is a sad and strange thing. While most people in the country use this day off to mark the unofficial end of summer, hang out with friends and family at a barbecue, and take advantage of various online and in-store deals for shit they dont need, the holiday has a more serious meaning.

Formally recognized by Congress in 1894 as a federal holiday, Labor Day was a way for people to remember the workers struggles over the years following the spread of mass industrialization. Back then, workers of all ages even children were forced to work six days a week and for extremely long hours while only earning pennies a day.

Strikes happened. People died. And as a result of even more struggles over the years, unions fought so you can now have a 40-hour work week, kids are able to get an education instead of work, and you get to enjoy a whole list of freedoms.

But the bosses won out in the end it seems, because Labor Day is now more about sales and consumption than workers rights.

To remember the men and women who stood their ground against powerful moneyed interests for better pay and wages (and to remind ourselves of the better conditions we should have today), heres a list of 10 metal songs that hit at the heart of labor and the workers plight.

Meet them in the streetsMeet them in the hollersMeet them in the hills and dont back down, dont back downFight for what is right, for every working man to earn his keepFight for what is right till they meet your demandsin Bloody Harlan

Growing up, Americans are barely taught about the labor movement outside of there were strikes and good things came as a result. The reality, however, is often bloodier than we learn.

In Panopticons fifth album Kentucky, the American black metal band mixes bluegrass, Americana, and US black metal to tell the tale of Bloody Harlan, or the Harlan County War of 1931. In that incident, striking coal miners fought for almost a decade to be able to unionize, let alone get better working conditions and wages.

As a result, employers fired union members and evicted them from company homes before eventually hiring thugs and using local police to meet them with violence. Bombings, executions, and gunfights took place. Ultimately, the miners were able to form a union and fight for better conditions.

Black Soot and Red Blood deals with these skirmishes and the union members willingness to lay down their lives for their cause. It even includes samples of coal workers describing what they remembered from those times.

Sound offTake a look at your life, tell me to what do you aspire?I want to know how far youre willing to goCant stop the force of ruin, this world will run through youIf not now, then when?If not us, then who?

Now, we know this song is based on a quote made by the late civil rights leader and U.S. Representative John Robert Lewis about the struggle for equal rights, but this song by Power Trip off of Nightmare Logic easily fits within most social struggles. The line If not us, then who would fit just as well in an early 1900s coal miners picket line as it would in a civil rights march in the 60s.

Many times, picketers, strikers, and union members would push their fellow workers into action by explaining that inaction only helped the bosses exploit them further. If Not Us Then Who can serve as a rallying cry for many social fights.

Like a workhorse stands for milesWork for you, never get tiredRoll em up, its time to goWell be back before its too long

It doesnt matter how much you love your job, work sucks. This song by Mastodon, off the 2002 album Remission, equates modern wage work to slavery. It acknowledges that without work, you couldnt live in a capitalist society, but it ultimately breeds a living condition where you wake up, go to work, go to sleep, and go back to work hence the well be back before its too long line.

When the band used to play this song live, Brent Hinds has been filmed introducing it by saying this song is about work. Work fucking sucks.

Indeed it does, Brent. Indeed it does.

ColdShackled to The bottom Of the bottle Of the socio-economic slaveryThat rules And runs my life

Colorado doom band Primitive Man effectively nail the damn near nihilistic existence of wage work with their track Commerce. Slow and brooding, this track hits on the desolation that many people face staring down the barrel of a senseless routine that many labor organizers fought to avoid.

The song talks about being overworked, underpaid from a system thats meant to fail us which is something most people can relate to. When youre living paycheck to paycheck, or working two jobs just to stay afloat and keep a roof over your head, youre living a life that the folks behind Labor Day wanted to make sure never happened.

I work my fingers to the bone just to surviveI gotta get money, so I can have a homeSo I can breathe, eat, and live in this societyI dont even like money

Stress builds character is about as close to a talking point as youll hear from some politicians in DC when it comes to things like student debt reform or the minimum wage. Stress Builds Character by Dystopia is all about how were forced to be miserable in a society that traps us with low or stagnant wages and rising costs.

Lines like I cant survive on this pay anymore and I need a raise, man are immediately relatable to anyone thats worked for minimum wage. All so they can just breathe, eat, and live in this society.

Now in the matrix take your place.Theyll tap your labor and your light.Gain euphoria, from your paranoia.

Back in the days before Pepper Keenan or Karl Agell served as Corrosion of Conformitys frontman, the band was known as a punky crossover outfit fronted by bassist Mike Dean. During that time, they talked a lot about social and political problems. Yet when Pepper was off playing in Down, the band reunited under that original lineup and released a self-titled album in 2012.

In a return to their punk/stoner/crossover ways, the band put out The Moneychangers, a fast and to the point song that uses some religious imagery to decry how employers set the bait (aka a job) and when you think youre blessed and say yes to the new gig, thats when you know the trap is set. Youre theirs to exploit because unionization support in the U.S. has been gutted for so long.

When theyve tortured and scared you for 20 odd yearsThen they expect you to pick a careerWhen you cant really function, youre so full of fearA working class hero is something to be

Originally a John Lennon song, Ozzys cover of Working Class Hero is a somber reminder that in its current form, youre born into a society that puts you in your place and forces you to find your own path if you want to break the cycle.

Still, you can always get to the top if youre willing to learn to smile as you kill, meaning step on everyone on your way up. Ruthless career advancement at all costs is not uncommon in todays workplace.

Barren land that once filled a needAre worthless now, dead without a deedSlipping away from an iron gripNatures scales are forced to tip

The heartland cries, loss of all prideTo leave aint believing, so try and be triedInsufficient funds, insanity, and suicide

Megadeth has never been a band to shy away from current events and socio-political topics and in Countdown to Extinction, the whole album was one big middle finger to the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.

This song in particular, deals with a situation where the U.S. sanctioned Russia and refused to sell them our grain, creating a surplus that caved the price of farmers goods. Farmland decreased in value and ultimately family farms were foreclosed upon, with banks evicting families and selling those properties to the highest bidder usually massive corporations. Dave Mustaine said as much in 1992.

The government dictates everything to us. What it cant get over on the black and Hispanic man, it gets over on the white. Its about Reaganomics and how it took advantage of the real nucleus of America the farmers.

You got me forced to crack my lids in twoIm still stuck inside the rubber roomI gotta punch the clock that leads the blindIm just another gear in the assembly line-oh no

The noose gets tighter around my throatBut I aint at the end of my rope

A rager of a song from New Jerseys own Skid Row, Slave to the Grind is an anthem standing up against the doldrums and unfairness that comes out of working a wage slave job. Its about how people like your Jeff Bezoses and Elon Musks of the world dont actually give a shit about you or your fellow employees.

Yet youre never truly at the end of your rope in this track. Be your own person, find your own way in life, and you can get out of that rat race is the name of the game in this classic song.

Well, I get up at seven, yeahAnd Ill go to work at nineI got no time for livinYes, Im workin all the time

It seems to meI could live my lifeA lot better than I think I amI guess thats why they call meThey call me the workin man

Technically this isnt metal, but if you have a problem with Rush then youve got a problem with me, eh.

Rushs Working Man is the perfect workers anthem, talking about how our lives of constantly working to make someone else richer while you trade away your days can be soul sucking. Youre a laborer and because you dont have a way to earn the profits made for the things you make, you can always feel that I could live my life a lot better than I think I am.

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10 Songs That Deal with Labor Rights and Hating Your Job - MetalSucks