Jane McAlevey, a seasoned union organizer and prolific writer, died July 7 at age 59 after a battle with multiple myeloma.
McAlevey was once deputy national director of SEIU’s health care division, but she’s best known as the author of four books about union organizing, based on the old-school approach she learned at SEIU Local 1199NE in Connecticut. In her book No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age, she laid out a method of organizing that starts with recruiting respected workers, developing them as leaders, and ramping up the level of engagement of the entire work force until they’re prepared to strike if their employer refuses to be fair with them.
McAlevey was critical of a trend among some unions to hire college-educated professionals from outside their ranks instead of developing and training their own rank-and-file members. She also blamed union decline on a shift to shallow “mobilization,” in which dedicated activists turn out while most union members stay uninvolved.
In recent years, her ideas have been gaining traction, like the idea that union bargaining teams shouldn’t agree to gag rules, and can invite every worker to observe contract negotiations. A free six-week online course in organizing training she led trained tens of thousands of worker organizers in multiple countries. Her students will mourn her loss, but her ideas and methods will live on.
