Essential: How the Pandemic Transformed the Long Fight for Worker Justice

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 fr...