Essential
How the Pandemic Transformed the Long Fight for Worker Justice
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
How essential workers’ fight for better jobs during the pandemic revolutionized US labor politics
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, essential workers lashed out against low wages, long hours, and safety risks, attracting a level of support unseen in decades. This explosion of labor unrest seemed sudden to many. But Essential reveals that American workers had simmered in discontent long before their anger boiled over.
Decades of austerity, sociologist Jamie K. McCallum shows, have left frontline workers vulnerable to employer abuse, lacking government protections, and increasingly furious. Through firsthand research conducted as the pandemic unfolded, McCallum traces the evolution of workers’ militancy, showing how their struggles for safer workplaces, better pay and health care, and the right to unionize have benefitted all Americans and spurred a radical new phase of the labor movement. This is essential reading for understanding the past, present, and future of the working class.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Covid-19 pandemic inaugurated a rare national conversation on justice for the working class, according to this enlightening analysis. Sociologist McCallum (Worked Over) highlights the tragic experiences of blue-collar workers caught in the grips of the pandemic, including a Houston mother of four forced to live out of her car after the local eviction moratorium ended, and a Burmese immigrant who fell sick while working 15-hour days at a Colorado meatpacking plant and slipped into a fatal coma soon after her grandson was born. According to McCallum, these and other calamities sparked an "awakening" that united essential workers across industries. Amazon workers formed the first labor union in the company's history; Massachusetts nurses picketed for 301 days to end cost-cutting staff furloughs and mandatory overtime; Chicago teachers refused to return to overcrowded, poorly ventilated classrooms. McCallum delves into the long-festering tensions behind these actions, including the "tectonic shift" in risk distribution across society, as corporations and governments raised employee healthcare premiums while simultaneously increasing work hours. His solutions include continued labor actions, passage of the Green New Deal, and shorter work hours. Interweaving deeply affecting personal stories with whip-smart structural analysis, this is a revealing diagnosis of America's ills and an invigorating call for change.
