“Unions Are a Pain in the Ass. Yet We Have No Choice but to Build Good Unions”
Union organizer Jane McAlevey on labor’s loss at Amazon in Alabama, what the future of labor organizing success depends on, and how organizers can win.
17 Articles by: Jane McAlevey
Jane McAlevey has been an organizer and negotiator in the labor movement for over twenty years. While she continues to organize, she serves as the Strikes Correspondent for the Nation and Senior Policy Fellow at UC Berkeley's Labor Center. McAlevey is the author of three books, Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell) and No Shortcuts, Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age, and the forthcoming A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing & the Fight for Democracy.
Jane McAlevey on the Union Defeat at Amazon
Labor strategist Jane McAlevey offers her take on why Amazon workers were defeated in their recent Bessemer, Alabama union drive.
Jane McAlevey: Prepare to Hit the Streets After Election Day
Labor organizer and strategist Jane McAlevey saw the disaster of the 2000 Florida recount close up. This time, she says, the labor movement will be crucial in the fight to “force the Democratic Party to do something that we don’t think that they’re going to do on their own.”
It’s Not Enough to Fight — Labor and the Left Have to Be Serious About How to Win
Unions and the Left across the globe have the power to defeat the billionaires. But Jane McAlevey explains that doing this requires we learn the best traditions of labor organizing — and that we talk to people who don’t already agree with us and win them over to our side.
To Stop an Electoral Coup, Study What Went Wrong in the 2000 Florida Recount
As the possibility of Donald Trump trying to undemocratically snatch the 2020 presidential election seems increasingly likely, we should look to a previous successful attempt by Republicans to seize the presidency while the Democratic Party all but stood by helplessly: the 2000 election’s Florida recount.
How to Organize Your Friends and Family on Thanksgiving
Nobody wants to share a Thanksgiving table with a sanctimonious leftist jerk. If you’re going to talk politics over turkey, do it the right way. Here’s how.
Ask Labor Jane: Can We Stick to the Union but Keep Our Independence?
Unions are great — everybody should have one. But when it comes to actually organizing one, workers are faced with some thorny questions, because so many American unions have made horrible deals with employers that trade away rank-and-file workers’ right to fight.
Ask Labor Jane: How Can We Organize Worried Immigrant Workers?
Jane McAlevey argues that bosses will always try to divide native-born and immigrant workers — that’s what they do. Our response, in union drives and politics as a whole, has to be unconditional solidarity.
Ask Labor Jane: How Can We Build Industrial Unionism in Education and Health Care?
Jane McAlevey argues that to build the power required to make huge gains for workers, we can’t organize different kinds of workers separately from each other. We need wall-to-wall organization in workplaces to build an antiracist, antisexist trade union movement.
Ask Labor Jane: “I Quit My Job to Dedicate Myself to Organizing. What Now?”
Introducing our new organizing advice column, with labor organizer and strategist Jane McAlevey.
Organizing to Win a Green New Deal
The labor movement has to be central to winning a Green New Deal and reversing climate change. Recent labor victories show how we can do just that, from the ground up, and quickly.
“There Are So Many Things That We Can Learn From This Strike”
The Los Angeles teachers strike showed that bottom-up organizing can overcome extraordinary odds. We can do the same throughout the health and education sectors — and at Amazon.
The Strike as the Ultimate Structure Test
To build a more confident, fighting, politically educated working class, no task is more pressing right now than building for successful strikes.
A Strategy to Win
The victory in West Virginia and the impasse in Oklahoma raise important questions for the Left. Drawing out the strategic lessons of these strikes is crucial for the fights ahead.
Everything Old Is New Again
Rebuilding the labor movement will take organizing, not just mobilizing.
Everything Old Is New Again
Rebuilding the labor movement will take organizing, not just mobilizing.
Having the Hard Conversations
Jane McAlevey on Fight for 15, labor’s crisis of strategy, and the difference between organizing and mobilizing.