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.

A Collective Bargain by Jane_McAlevey book cover

Why Unions Matter – Excerpt from A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy: Unions, we may finally be coming to realize, are absolutely essential to democracy.

Unions are such a pain in the ass really. Anyone who has dealt with a union understands. Then again, so is trying to get through to customer service at your bank, or the warranty division of a company that made one of your household appliances. Unions can be bureaucratic and hard to navigate in the same way dealing with the permit process to build a house or a building, or opening a childcare centre is. Read More

A Collective Bargain by Jane_McAlevey book cover

The Assault On Workers Seventy Years In The Making – Excerpt from A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy: Workers who fought to build strong unions turned horrible jobs in the auto factories into the kind of employment that became the backbone of the American Dream.

Workers who fought to build strong unions turned horrible jobs in the auto factories into the kind of employment that became the backbone of the American Dream. Liberals yearn nostalgically for a time when corporate leaders seemed more responsible, for an era when CEOs seemed to understand that employees, the people who make the profits, were considered more important than, if not equal to, the shareholders. Read More

A Collective Bargain by Jane_McAlevey book cover

How Unions Can Still Win Big – Excerpt from “A Collective Bargain Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy”: There are only two sides, the owners and the rest of us.

It’s October 20, 2018, and it’s louder than an orchestra or rock concert on the 2200 block of Broadway in downtown Oakland, California. Irma Perez is working her bullhorn like a trumpet virtuoso. She’s standing in the middle of hundreds of people who’ve made plastic buckets into drums, their hands holding perfect rhythm as they harmonize their chant: “Hey hey, ho ho—Mar-ri-ott has got to go!” Read More