On the Line Two Women's Epic Fight to Build a Union

"Lyrical . . . candid, clear-eyed and utterly engrossing, Pitkin’s writing couldn’t come at a better—or more necessary—time.” —Jessica Bruder, New York Times bestselling author of Nomadland
 
“A riveting and intimate meditation on power, class consciousness, and the true meaning of solidarity.” —Francisco Cantú, New York Times bestselling author of The Line Becomes a River
 
On the Line takes readers inside a bold five-year campaign to organize workers in the dangerous industrial laundry factories of Phoenix, Arizona. Employees here wash hospital, hotel, and restaurant linens and face harsh conditions, and unfair U.S. labor law makes it nearly impossible for them to fight for their rights. 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. Forged in the flames of the company’s vicious anti-union crusade, the relationships that grow between Daisy, Alma, and the rest of the factory workers show how a union 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, Daisy must reflect on her own position of privilege and the complicated nature of union hierarchies. Daisy Pitkin also looks back to the forgotten role immigrant women have played in the labor movement, as we experience one of the largest labor upheavals in decades, she shows how difficult it is to bring about social change, and why we can’t afford to stop trying.

Daisy Pitkin has spent more than twenty years as a community and union organizer, working first in support of garment workers around the world, and then for U.S. labor unions organizing industrial laundry workers. Her essays have been awarded the Montana Prize, the DISQUIET Literary Prize, the New Millennium Award, and the Monique Wittig Writer’s Scholarship. She grew up in rural Ohio and received an MFA from the University of Arizona. Pitkin lives and writes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she works as an organizer with an offshoot of the union UNITE. Find her at daisypitkin.net.