Fight like hell: The untold story of American labor Kim Kelly. Atria/One Signal Publishers, New York, 2022, xi + 418, ISBN: 9781982171056, Price $28, hardback
| Published date | 01 September 2024 |
| Author | Jason Russell |
| Date | 01 September 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12795 |
Received: 11 February2024 Accepted: 12 February 2024
DOI: 10.1111/bj ir.12795
BOOK REVIEW
Fight like hell: The untold story of American
labor
Kim Kelly. Atria/One Signal Publishers, New York, 2022, xi +418, ISBN:
9781982171056, Price $28, hardback
Jason Russell
SUNY Empire State University, New York,New York, USA
Correspondence
Jason Russell, SUNY Empire State University,New York, New York, USA.
Email: jason.russell@sunyempire.edu
Organized labour in the United States is currently having a moment, as the sayingg oes. American
workers have always exhibited militancy even if their discontent did not manifest itself through
union organizing drives. Things began to change during the COVID-19 pandemic as workerswho
had usually been viewed as deserving of low wages and little respect, while toiling in crucial ser-
vice sector jobs, were suddenly lionized as heroes for risking their lives to ensure that retirement
homes, pharmacies and grocery stores remained open while other people stayed home to avoid
getting ill in the worst global public health crisis in a hundred years. A lot of American wage
workers who emerged from the pandemic felt that they had enough of being paid poorly, mis-
treated, and undervalued and decided they were going to do something about it. They mounted
impressive organizing drives at places like Starbucks and Amazon, backed progressive political
candidates, and sought to improve their unions if they already belonged to one. They may not
have known it, but the marginalized workers who have waged these new struggles are standing
on the shoulders of workers like them who engaged in similar efforts throughout America’s his-
tory. It is those workers who are the subject of Kim Kelly’s new book Fight Like Hell: The Untold
Story of American Labor.
Kelly is a journalist and activist who writes regularly about labour for a range of publications,
including Teen Vogue. A magazine such as that one may not seem like a publication in which
articles about work and labour would be expected to appear,but it is exactly the type of magazine
read by the people in whose hands labour history needs to be placed: young workers. Fight Like
Hell is not a comprehensive scholarly history of labour in America, and Kelly does not describe it
as such, but is rather an engaging popular account of workers’ struggles over the long arc of the
country’s past. Kelly makes it clear that this is a book about ‘people in the background’ and she
reveals the lives of some who have also been in the foregroundof labour struggle. There are labour
stalwarts like Mother Jones, Emma Goldman, Dolores Huerta and Frances Perkins described in
the book, along with lesser-known figures like Ella May Wiggins.
Br J Ind Relat. 2024;62:519–520. © 2024 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 519wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/bjir
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