Writing
Organizers with substantial, direct experience in the field have an entirely different focus than authors who have not been involved in campaigns: we focus on how the work gets done (methods), and how to win.

Nation Conversations: Why Unions Are Not the Problem

This week, thousands of public employees, students and their allies flooded Wisconsin’s streets to protest Governor Scott Walker’s plan to take away workers’ right to collective bargaining. This very public display of workers’ power is a much-needed reinvigoration of a beleaguered labor movement, and as Jane McAlevey outlines in her article in this week’s issue of The Nation, could be the first step toward rebuilding an ethical American economy. Read More

Nation magazine cover, 12/20/2010

The Nation: Making Unions Matter Again

I recently published a cover story in The Nation title “Making Unions Matter Again” Union organizers–paid staff and rank-and-file workers–should begin to take to the doors and begin to meet hundreds of thousands of workers and galvanize a movement to demand economic justice. If unions do this with unorganized workers and together they win campaigns, it’s more likely these same workers will consider unionization to be a good option in their work life. Read More

AlterNet: Don’t Just Mobilize – Organize

Don’t mourn — organize! The classic union motto. So simple. We all agree with it, right? It is not something we need to seriously reflect on, right? We can just print it on a placard and stick it up on the wall by the coffee machine, right? Wrong. In fact, for the past few decades the progressive movement has worked under a different motto: Don’t mourn — mobilize! Read More