Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I am the editor-in-chief of current affairs magazine.

My guest today is Daisy Pitkin.

She is a community and union organizer and writer based out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

She has spent 20 years in the labor movement's end.

Her new book is on the line, a story of class, solidarity, and two women's epic fight to build a union.

Daisy, thank you so much for joining us here on Curit Affairs Day.

I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

I was trying to think about how I'd like to start off to guide people into the story that you tell here.

This is a memoir, this is an organizing memoir, which is a genre that I don't know has many entries in it.

You don't often read memoirs by union organizers.

But I think where I'd actually like to start is with industrial laundries.

Because I think you are writing about an organizing campaign in the industrial laundries of

Arizona. And I think this the industrial laundries of Arizona.

And I think this is a whole world of work that most people never see,

that is buried beneath the surface.

And perhaps you could tell us a little bit about these places and what they're like and the people who are at the heart of the

story you tell. Sure. I think you're exactly right that industrial laundries are in some ways

invisible, or at least not many people know about them. They exist around every major U.S.

city and large community. There are thousands and thousands of them across the country.

And hundreds of people work in these big industrial warehouses, and they launder linens that come

from restaurants and hospitals and hotels.

I write a lot in my book about one particular factory in Phoenix, Arizona, which was a hospital

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