Essential: How the Pandemic Spurred A Radical New Phase in the Labor Movement with Author

Presented by The Labor & Community Studies Department of City College of San Francisco & The Green Arcade. How essential workers’ fight for better jobs during the pandemic revolutionized US labor politics

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 Jamie McCallum's book Essential: How the Pandemic Transformed the Long Fight For Worker Justice
reveals that American workers had simmered in discontent long before their anger boiled over.

Decades of austerity, sociologist McCallum shows, have left frontline workers vulnerable to employer abuse, lacking government protections, and increasingly furious. Through firsthand research conducted as the pandemic unfolded, he 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. This is essential reading for understanding the past, present, and future of the US working class.