Freed Black women organizing for protection in the Reconstruction-era South. Jewish immigrant garment workers braving deadly conditions for a sliver of independence. Asian American fieldworkers rejecting government-sanctioned indentured servitude across the Pacific. Incarcerated workers advocating for basic human rights and fair wages. The queer Black labor leader who helped orchestrate America's civil rights movement. These are only some of the working-class heroes who propelled American labor's relentless push for fairness and equal protection under the law. The names and faces of countless silenced, misrepresented, or forgotten leaders have been erased by time as a privileged few decide which stories get cut from the final copy: those of women, people of color, LGBTQIA people, disabled people, sex workers, prisoners, and the poor. In this volume, Kelly excavates that untold history and shows how the rights the American worker has today--the forty-hour workweek, workplace-safety standards, restrictions on child labor, protection from harassment and discrimination on the job--were earned with literal blood, sweat, and tears. --From publisher description.

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

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 .