Photos: Earl Dotter. Click for pop-ups.

Bale opener.

Loom tender.

Louis Harrell with his retirement award from Stevens, shortly before his death.

Si Kahn wrote this song in 1976 for Louis Harrell, a 28-year retiree from J. P. Stevens.

Harrell died later at age 62 of byssinosis, or "brown lung," after years of inhaling dust generated in cotton manufacture. He had been the first president of the Carolina Brown Lung Association.

Brown lung -- a term coined by Ralph Nader -- occurs almost exclusively in cotton processing workers who handle raw cotton.

Typically in the early stages, symptoms show up on days when a worker has returned to the mill following a weekend or a day off. Hence the title of the song.

In the later stages tightness, coughing, and shortness of breath build. Patients can go for years in a weakened state until they die, usually of something else.

Byssinosis could have been recognized sooner. Health officials as far back as the 1930s were aware of the dangers of workers' prolonged exposure to cotton dust. Because it was able to control the outflow of health data, the cotton industry stalled acknowledgment of the disease for 50 years.

Finally in 1978 -- the year of Harrell's death -- OSHA imposed a protective standard on textile factories. It estimated that 35,000 people had the disease and 100,000 more were at risk.

Today cotton production and byssinosis are largely ended in the US. But both are common in the third world.

Si Kahn served as one of Harrell's pall-bearers.

Personnel: Si Kahn, guitar, lead vocals; Annemarieke Coenders, harmony vocals; Linde Nijland, harmony vocals; Jesse Kahn, producer; Pieter Groenveld, engineer, producer; Jelke Haisma, mastering.

Si Kahn is the director of Grassroots Leadership and a member of AFM Local 1000.

Originally released in 1976, Go To Work On Monday was re-released in 1982, and re-recorded and re-released on Si's Thanksgiving CD in 2007, from which this performance was ripped. Purchase his music at sikahn.com.

Brown lung photos by Earl Dotter, from his book The Quiet Sickness.

The history of the cotton dust fight in the US is detailed by Charles Levenstein, Gregory DeLaurier, and Mary Lee Dunn: The Cotton Dust Papers.