The way we typically remember post–World War II industrial work like auto manufacturing might include it being repetitive, maybe unpleasant, but stable and well-paying, making decent lives possible for enormous numbers of workers in the United States. But that’s only part of the story. It also included incredible amounts of violence, as labor historian Jeremy Milloy chronicles in Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Violence at Work in the North American Auto Industry, 1960-80.

Milloy argues that violence on the factory floor saturated the entire production process of American and Canadian auto manufacturing, both in the work itself and in the interpersonal relations among workers and between workers and managers. The book is a strong challenge to prevailing nostalgic notions about the placid conditions of work at the height of twentieth-century industrial America — and raises questions about the omnipresent nature of violence at work under capitalism in any era.

Jacobin deputy editor Micah Uetricht interviewed Milloy for the Jacobin Radio podcast The Vast Majority. You can listen to the episode here. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.