John O’Connor 1980?
O’Connor is a founding member of the American Federation of Musicians and a labor historian and organizer.
Early in the morning at the start of the day I force my fingers ’round the handle of the blade. Start in to cuttin’ just as fast as I can. By the end of the day I can hardly move my hands. Chorus I got that old carpal tunnel and my hands won’t move But the foreman tells me to stay in the groove. You cut that cattle as fast as I do, You’ll get that carpal tunnel too. Oh, ten years ago I started in the kill Now ten years later, well, I got my fill. But I keep on cuttin’ though the line’s twice as fast. Well, I don’t know how long these arms will last. I work with a knife and a blade in my hand I cut them cows with a big iron band. But it feels like a knife is cuttin’ me all the time, ‘Cause the carpal tunnel lives in the big nerve line. There ain’t five minutes that passes a man, That he don’t feel the carpal tunnel deep in his hands. He feels it in his fingers and wrists all the time, It’s the curse of the speed upon the carcass line. Now I’ll go in for an operation once more, But I’ll come right back to the killing floor, And I’ll tell them darling children of mine, “Don’t you ever go to work on the packinghouse line.”