In 2023, the US working class fought back. After decades of stagnating wages and concessionary contracts, this year workers in a vast range of industries went on the offensive.

More than 500,000 workers walked off the job this year, more than double the 224,000 that struck last year, which itself was double 2021’s numbers, according to Cornell University’s Labor Action Tracker. Baristas, journalists, actors, manufacturing workers, professors, autoworkers, health care workers: they all shared in the terrifying, exhilarating experience of walking off the job. More importantly, they won.

Autoworkers at the Big Three — Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis — wrestled back many of the concessions they’d made in recent decades, particularly in the aftermath of the Great Recession. They didn’t succeed on all fronts — some members still don’t have pensions, and not every worker is satisfied with their raise — but between the conversion of scores of temporary workers to full-time positions, hefty raises over the length of the contract, the reopening of an idled Stellantis plant in Belvidere, Illinois, and the creation of pathway for electric vehicle (EV) workers to be folded into the union’s master contracts — it was a decisive victory.