Jacobin Archives - Jane McAlevey

UAW strike picket line

The UAW Decided to Use a Novel Strike Strategy. It’s Working.: The UAW’s “stand-up” strike strategy, which targets portions of the Big Three simultaneously, was a gamble. But the approach has worked so far...

  (excerpt) First, bargaining is very public. Members know what’s happening at the table, which is novel enough. The tradition in North American labor relations has long been to bargain in private; members are brought in when an impasse or a tentative agreement is reached. Employers prefer it this way. GM CEO Mary Barra confirmed this on September 29 in her statement on negotiations, asserting that “serious bargaining happens at the table, not in public.” Read More

german hospital strikers

In Berlin, Overworked Hospital Staff Went on Strike for a Month — and Won: Medics launched a month long strike that forced hospital management to guarantee minimum staffing levels

The particular conversational technique that worked so well is part of Jane McAlevey’s tool kit for building mass-participation strikes, developed by drawing on the tactics of the radical Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) unions of 1930s America. Read the article >> Read More

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Starbucks Union, Amazon, and a Year of Worker Unrest: Jane McAlevey discusses the strikes across the US in 2021 and more

Labor organizer and author Jane McAlevey discusses the strikes and unrest across the US in 2021, the recent Starbucks unionization, the Amazon union recount in Bessemer, and how the labor movement can flex its muscle under a Biden presidency. &; Read More

Washington Fruit Packers Protest Working Conditions Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

The Left in Lockdown: We talk to radical organizers Adolph Reed, Barbara Smith, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Jodi Dean, and Jane McAlevey about how they’re staying politically engaged under quarantine

Jane McAlevey is as horrified by the news as you are, whether it’s Governor Andrew Cuomo rushing to invite Google’s Eric Schmidt to “reimagine” the state’s economy and school system, or Mitch McConnell’s latest attempt to punish ordinary Americans for a global pandemic. “These motherfuckers are so much more prepared to take advantage of this than the Left,” she fumes. Read More

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Having the Hard Conversations

While in Montreal for the aforementioned national organizing conference, I agreed to do a radio interview with a Canadian researcher and blogger, Michael Rozworski. He blogs at Political Eh-conomy. Michael published the podcast of our interview, and, was then asked to transcribe it into an article for the magazine Jacobin, who then ran it as an interview in early October. Read More