In this Special Issue of Asian Labour Update entitled ‘Pandemic, Crisis, and the Working Class on the Continent of Labour’ we present a collection of writings from around the Asia region that document how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted workers during the outset in 2020. The writings contained in this issue come from a variety of industries, including healthcare, platform economy, domestic work, garment, forest produce collectors, and more. They portray the ways in which the devastating impacts on workers under this global pandemic are inseparable from the structures, priorities, and needs of capitalism, as well as the remarkable resilience of the working class and its inspiring capacity for collective care.