"Foreword by Sara Nelson, International President, Association of Flight Attendant-CWA, AFL-CIO"--Front of dust jacket.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [319]-401) and index.

1. The trailblazers. The Mill girls of Lowell, Massachusetts -- "The blood of souls in bondage" -- The freed Black washerwomen of Jackson, Mississippi -- A showdown in Atlanta -- 2. The garment workers. The fiery Jewish girls (Farbrente Yidishe Meydlekh) of New York City -- "Burning death before our eyes" -- Frances Perkins: labor activist turned architect of the New Deal -- "A turning point in my life": Sue Lo Kee and the National Dollar Stores factory strike -- Viva la huelga: Rosa Flores and the San Antonio Farah strike -- 3. The mill workers. Innovation and bloodshed on the picket line -- Ola Delight Smith and the battle to organize the South -- Militancy in the southern mills: the 1934 textile strike -- 4. The revolutionaries. Lucy Parsons and the Haymarket Eight -- Ben Fletcher and the rise of racial capitalism -- The United States of America vs. the Wobblies -- Dr. Marie Equi, Portland's "Queen of the Bolsheviks" -- The bloody responses to revolt -- 5. The miners. Women break open the mines of Appalachia -- Black labor and the Coal Creek War -- They called her Mother Jones -- The West diversifies the workforce -- Indigenous and Latino workers hold the line -- A half century later, back where we began -- The 2021 Warrior Met Coal strike -- 6. The harvesters. Hawai'i's masters and servants -- Sugar and blood -- Los Braceros, the Dust Bowl, and the great Mexican-American migration -- "Crusader in rubber boots and a big skirt" -- "Sí, se puede!" -- Nagi Daifullah and the largest farmworker strike in history -- "We want dignity and respect" -- 7. The cleaners. Waiting to work -- "The Bronx slave market" -- Building power in the power laundries -- Dorothy Lee Bolden and the world ahead -- "Ya basta!" ("Enough is enough") --

8. The freedom fighters. "Shoot to kill any Negro who refuse[s] to surrender immediately" -- The Pullman Railway porters -- The Pullman maids' double bind -- "You're supposed to be scared when you come in here" -- "There was no one more able to pull it together than Bayard Rustin" -- 9. The movers. Brewing up trouble -- "No red-baiting, no race-baiting, no queen-baiting!" -- "We put the 'trans' back in transportation" -- Reagan declares war on labor -- Freedom to fly -- 10. The metalworkers. A midwestern revolution -- Building multiracial alliances in the Michigan auto industry -- Arab solidarity in Dearborn, Michigan -- Fighting sexual harassment on the assembly line -- Steel pride -- 11. The disabled workers. Circuses for bread -- "Handicapped workers must live, give us jobs" -- Section 504, a Civil Rights Act for the disabled -- "They know we're desperate for work": taking on the subminimum wage -- 12. The sex workers. San Francisco's "Barbary Coast" -- "All I ask is for a living wage and I'll get out of it myself" -- Ah Toy and the Chinese immigrant workers' struggle -- Margo St. James's COYOTEs and the HIV/AIDS crisis -- The movement takes center stage -- Performers' rights and community care -- 13. The prisoners. The rise of prisoners' labor unions -- Women's prisons and rebellion -- The incarcerated workers organizing committee -- California's incarcerated firefighters .