I’m always intrigued by nonfiction books, especially one that exposes me to a world that I wouldn’t know about otherwise. I loved reading On the Line by Daisy Pitkin. It brought me up close and personal to unions and people fighting for better workers’ rights.
Before I share my review, though, here is a bit more about the book:
On the Line takes readers inside a bold five-year campaign to bring a union to the dangerous industrial laundry factories of Phoenix, Arizona. Workers here wash hospital, hotel, and restaurant linens and face harsh conditions: routine exposure to biohazardous waste, injuries from surgical tools left in hospital sheets, and burns from overheated machinery. Broken U.S. labor law makes it nearly impossible for them to fight back.
The drive to unionize is led by two women: author Daisy Pitkin, a young labor organizer, who addresses this exhilarating narrative to Alma Gomez García, a second-shift immigrant worker, who risks her livelihood to join the struggle and convinces her fellow workers to take a stand.
Forged in the flames of a grueling legal battle and the company’s vicious anti-union crusade, including the retaliatory firing of Alma, the relationships that grow between Daisy, Alma, and the rest of the factory workers show how a union, at its best, can reach beyond the workplace and form a solidarity so powerful that it can transcend friendship and transform communities. But when political strife divides the union, and her friendship with Alma along with it, Daisy must reflect on her own position of privilege and the complicated nature of union hierarchies and top-down organizing.
Daisy Pitkin looks back to uncover the forgotten roles immigrant women have played in the U.S. labor movement and points the way forward. As we experience one of the largest labor upheavals in decades, On the Line shows how difficult it is to bring about social change, and why we can’t afford to stop trying.
About My Review
What a book! Viewing it from its writing perspective alone, Daisy has an amazing way of bringing you closely inside the industrial laundry factories. It’s so vivid you can almost smell the scent of detergent in the midst of sweat and the weariness of hard labor and hard fighting. She’s a prolific writer and I loved how it was written as if she was writing a lengthy letter to Alma, her friend she fought beside for so long.
I also appreciated the history inside the book too. It made me want to Google each and every historical account brought up to read it up-close-and-personal. It’s shocking the conditions so many workers are exposed to and how so often the laws and leaders work against them. The efforts for better working conditions, fair wages, and more rights are so hard to achieve.
I absolutely recommend reading this book! You don’t want to miss this one.
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It sounds like a compelling read.