“Organising”, says Jane McAlevey, “is fundamentally about having hard conversations with people and not running away from hard issues.” Her latest book, No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age, is true to this sentiment. In it, McAlevey outlines a critique of most contemporary union campaigning, using case studies and other analysis to argue in favour of a deeper and more rigorous approach to organising. While McAlevey’s experience and examples are primarily from a union context, her insights are highly transferrable.