We’re back with Sea­son Four of Work­ing Peo­ple! In this urgent episode, we talk with Dr. Amir Atabey­gi, a physi­cian at Mul­ti­Care Indi­go Urgent Care in Thurston Coun­ty, Wash­ing­ton. On Novem­ber 23, amid a ter­ri­fy­ing surge in COVID-19 cas­es around the coun­try, Dr. Atabey­gi joins his fel­low physi­cians, physi­cian assis­tants, and advanced reg­is­tered nurse prac­ti­tion­ers on the pick­et line as they strike for the basic safe­ty mea­sures their employ­er refus­es to pro­vide. We talk to Dr. Atabey­gi about what he and his cowork­ers face on the job, the rise of ?“retail health” com­pa­nies like Mul­ti­Care Health Sys­tems, and the grow­ing labor con­scious­ness of tra­di­tion­al­ly non-union­ized health­care workers.

This blog was originally published at In These Times on November 23, 2020. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Maximillian Alvarez is a writer and editor based in Baltimore and the host of Working People, “a podcast by, for, and about the working class today.” His work has been featured in venues like In These Times, The Nation, The Baffler, Current Affairs, and The New Republic.