Labor Day has come around again, and workers’ rights are now center stage in North America. Canadian railworkers nearly brought trade to a juddering halt in a dispute with rail firms. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are courting union members as they fight for the White House even as union leaders call the Republican nominee a union-busting “scab”.
These political efforts to appease, control and pacify the working class and labor movements span human history as a new book argues that it is the first book on the labor movement in the Roman empire.
