In the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic––when health risks and isolation protocol felt ever changing––there was one nightly routine New Yorkers could rely on. 

Residents gathered outside of their homes every evening to cheer for the "essential” workers. The nurses, health care professionals, or grocery store employees, who risked their own health to keep critical operations running for others.

It was the sound of recognition for a labor force often overlooked. And the deathly circumstances essential workers faced on a daily basis reimagined the ways we view the conditions of labor. 

Jamie McCallum, professor of sociology at Middlebury College, unpacks the pandemic’s impact on labor rights in his new book: Essential: How the Pandemic Transformed the Long Fight for Worker Justice. 

The Takeaway spoke with Jamie about the intersection of the labor and racial justice movement, rising inflation, policy surrounding worker’s rights, and the history of labor movements.