A timely, in-depth, and vital exploration of the American labour movement and its critical place in our society and politics by acclaimed labour reporter Hamilton Nolan.

The thesis is simple: Inequality is America's biggest problem. Unions are the single strongest tool that working people have to fix this problem. But the labour movement of today has failed to enable enough individuals to join unions. Thus, organized labour's powerful potential is being wielded incompetently. And what is happening inside of organized labour will-far more than most people realize-determine the economic and social course of American life for years to come.

In deeply reported chapters that span the country, Nolan shows readers how organized labour can and does wield power effectively-in spots-but also why it has long been unable to build itself into the powerful institution that the working class needs. These narratives both inspire by example and motivate by counter-example. Whether it's a union that has succeeded in a single city, and is trying to scale that effectiveness nationally, or the ins and outs of a historically large and transformative union campaign, or the human face of a strike, or a profile of the most anti-union state in America, Nolan highlights the actual mechanisms that connect labour to politics to real change. Throughout, Nolan follows Sara Nelson, the powerful and charismatic head of the flight attendants union, as she struggles with how (and whether) to assert herself as a national leader of the labour movement, to try to fix what is broken about it. The Hammer draws the line from forgotten workplaces to Washington's halls of power, and shows how labour can utterly transform American politics-if it can first transform itself.

Nolan is an expert who has covered labour and politics for more than a decade, and has helped to unionize his own industry. The time has come for his poignant and enlightening book as we prepare for the historic 2024 presidential election. The Hammer is a unique on-the-ground excavation of the present and the future of the labour movement. It is the story of what the labour movement can be, and why it isn't that...yet.