Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class

This insightful investigation from New York Times reporter Scheiber (The Escape Artists) examines how a radical new cohort of young, college-educated workers at major American corporations powered a wave of unionizations and strikes in recent years. The “dismal economy” during and after the Great Recession led to many college graduates taking low-wage jobs in retail and customer service, or working for years for low pay within their profession. This widening “gap... between the expectations of many graduates and their actual prospects” fueled an upswing in labor activism. Scheiber tracks workers preparing to unionize at an Apple store in Towson, Md., and a Chicago Starbucks, along the way spotlighting other labor disputes and developments, such as the Writers Guild of America’s 2023 strike and the United Auto Workers’ election of president Shawn Fain by an insurgent collective of “fed-up autoworkers and... graduate students.” Scheiber mixes nitty-gritty contract fights with poignant profiles of workers like Apple employee Chaya Barrett, who was “radicalized” by CEO Tim Cook’s astronomical $750 million stock windfall (“I’m working my butt off for not even a full percent of what you just sold”), as well as glimpses of corporations’ anti-union intimidation efforts, such as Starbucks establishing new benefits and wage increases only for non-union workers. It’s a galvanizing look at a stymied white-collar generation with the “politics... of the proletariat.” (Apr.)