Jane McAlevey

{{Short description|American labor organizer and author (1964–2024)}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2024}}

{{Infobox person

| image = Jane McAlevey Head Shot for Use.jpg

| alt = Profile picture of Jane McAlevey, taken in 2014

| caption = McAlevey in 2014

| birth_date = {{birth date|1964|10|12}}

| birth_place = New York City, New York, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|2024|7|7|1964|10|12}}

| death_place = Muir Beach, California, U.S.

| education = State University of New York, Buffalo (BA)
Graduate Center, CUNY (MA, PhD)

| occupation = Union, environmental and community organizer, scholar, author, political commentator

| years_active = 1984–2024

| website = {{URL|janemcalevey.com|Official website}}

}}

Jane F. McAlevey (October 12, 1964 – July 7, 2024) was an American union organizer, author, and political commentator.{{cite web|last=Guttenplan|first=D.D.|title=The Labor Movement Must Learn These Lessons From the Election|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/labor-movement-must-learn/|date=February 7, 2017|work=The Nation|access-date=January 7, 2019|archive-date=January 25, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190125073302/https://www.thenation.com/article/labor-movement-must-learn/|url-status=dead}}{{cite episode|host=Brian Lehrer|title=The Case for Unions|url=https://www.wnyc.org/story/case-unions/|date=June 25, 2018|series=The Brian Lehrer Show|work=WNYC|access-date=January 7, 2019|archive-date=January 25, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190125020541/https://www.wnyc.org/story/case-unions/|url-status=live}}{{Cite web |last1=Tattersall |first1=Amanda |last2=ChangeMakers |last3=McAlevey |first3=Jane |date=2021 |title=ChangeMaker Chat with Jane McAlevey: Winning Change Through Organising |url=https://commonslibrary.org/changemakers-podcast-changemaker-chat-with-jane-mcalevey/ |access-date=June 23, 2022 |publisher=Commons Social Change Library |archive-date=June 23, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220623074046/https://commonslibrary.org/changemakers-podcast-changemaker-chat-with-jane-mcalevey/ |url-status=live }} She was a Senior Policy Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, and a columnist at The Nation.

McAlevey contended that only workers have the power, through organization, to force significant change in the workplace and in society at large. Her model, what she called whole-worker organizing, sees workers and the community they live in as a whole. The underlying theory of change requires a systematic, grassroots mass organization of workers.

McAlevey wrote four books about organizing and the essential role of workers and trade unions in reversing income inequality and building a stronger democracy: Raising Expectations and Raising Hell (2012), No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age (2016), A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy (2020), and with Abby Lawlor, Rules to Win By: Power and Participation in Union Negotiations (2023).

Early life

Born in Manhattan,{{Cite news |last=Roosevelt |first=Margot |date=July 7, 2024 |title=Jane F. McAlevey, Who Empowered Workers Across the Globe, Dies at 59 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/business/jane-mcalevey-dead.html |access-date=July 8, 2024 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=July 7, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240707230024/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/business/jane-mcalevey-dead.html |url-status=live }} McAlevey was the youngest of nine children. Her father, John McAlevey, a World War II fighter pilot, lawyer, and progressive politician, was mayor of Sloatsburg, New York, then Supervisor of Ramapo, and member of the Rockland County Board of Supervisors.{{cite web |last=Anderson |first=Scott B. |date=November 4, 1985 |title=Ramapo Offers Growth Lesson for South Florida |url=https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1985-11-04-8502190233-story.html |access-date=January 4, 2019 |work=Sun Sentinel |archive-date=January 25, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190125020458/https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1985-11-04-8502190233-story.html |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |last=Hudson |first=Edward |date=September 1, 1985 |title=ROCKLAND TO ELECT FIRST COUNTY CHIEF |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/01/nyregion/rockland-to-elect-first-county-chief.html |access-date=August 26, 2023 |work=The New York Times |archive-date=August 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230826175437/https://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/01/nyregion/rockland-to-elect-first-county-chief.html |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |title=Capt John F McAlevey |url=https://airandspace.si.edu/support/wall-of-honor/capt-john-f-mcalevey |access-date=August 26, 2023 |publisher=National Air and Space Museum |archive-date=July 8, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240708220521/https://airandspace.si.edu/support/wall-of-honor/capt-john-f-mcalevey |url-status=live }} As a baby, her parents took her to civil rights and anti-Vietnam War marches. When she was 5, her mother died of BRCA-1 breast cancer, and her father began taking her to work with him. He advocated for open-space zoning and public housing, which led to her harassment in school: ''You'd go to school and get screamed at irrationally by the parents of other kids because 'your father is going to bring black people to Rockland County.' It was good to get taught principles early, to look in the face of fear a little bit and not look back," she recalls.{{cite news |last=Finn |first=Robin |date=November 9, 2000 |title=PUBLIC LIVES; In 15 Mug Shots, a Model of Disobedience |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/09/nyregion/public-lives-in-15-mug-shots-a-model-of-disobedience.html |access-date=August 30, 2023 |archive-date=April 15, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230415165403/https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/09/nyregion/public-lives-in-15-mug-shots-a-model-of-disobedience.html |url-status=live }} She began attending anti-nuclear protests on her own at age 13. In high school, she organized a successful student walkout, protesting against sexist female gym uniform requirements.{{Cite web |last=Jay |first=Paul |date=November 17, 2021 |title=Get Organized to Win! – Jane McAlevey pt 1/8 |url=https://theanalysis.news/get-organized-to-win-jane-mcalevey-pt-1/ |access-date=August 25, 2023 |website=theAnalysis.news |at=19:00 |archive-date=August 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230826030247/https://theanalysis.news/get-organized-to-win-jane-mcalevey-pt-1/ |url-status=live }}

Education

In 1984, while attending the State University of New York at Buffalo, McAlevey was elected student body president. She went on to be elected president of the Student Association of the State University of New York (SASU), the 200,000-member statewide student union in New York's public university system.{{cite book|last=Vellela|first=Tony|title=New Voices: Student Activism in the '80s and '90s|page=194|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N2DtsaWedu4C&q=mcalevey+Student+Association+of+the+State+University+of+New+York&pg=PA194|date=December 19, 1986 |publisher=South End Press|access-date=January 7, 2019|isbn=9780896083417|archive-date=July 8, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240708220521/https://books.google.com/books?id=N2DtsaWedu4C&q=mcalevey+Student+Association+of+the+State+University+of+New+York&pg=PA194#v=onepage&q=mcalevey%20Student%20Association%20of%20the%20State%20University%20of%20New%20York&f=false |url-status=live}}{{Cite news |last=Egner |first=David |date=September 23, 1985 |title=UB Student Points to Sign Of Resurgence in Protests |work=The Buffalo News}} As president, she also assumed the sole student representative position as a voting member of the board of trustees of the State University of New York (SUNY).{{Cite web |date=May 29, 1986 |title=State U. Trustees Vote For Sports Scholarships |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/29/nyregion/state-u-trustees-vote-for-sports-scholarships.html |access-date=August 24, 2023 |work=The New York Times |archive-date=August 25, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230825014509/https://www.nytimes.com/1986/05/29/nyregion/state-u-trustees-vote-for-sports-scholarships.html |url-status=live }} There, she orchestrated a student occupation of the SUNY headquarters building to protest the university's investments in South Africa. McAlevey was one of the "SUNY 6" organizers arrested for trespass; she and two others accepted 15-day sentences and went to prison rather than agree to refrain from protesting during a probationary period. Four days after their release and announcement of further protests, the SUNY trustees voted to divest the university system from entities doing business in South Africa; it was the largest single act of divestiture in the United States at that time.{{cite web |last=Charny |first=Benjamin |date=September 25, 1985 |title=SUNY Board to Trustees Votes to Divest South Africa Funds |url=https://dspace.sunyconnect.suny.edu/bitstream/handle/1951/28631/Statesman%20V.%2029,%20n.%2009.pdf;jsessionid=9CB3FF1885A165A4642B8DB46024B384?sequence=1/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240708220539/https://dspace.sunyconnect.suny.edu/bitstream/handle/1951/28631/Statesman%20V.%2029,%20n.%2009.pdf;jsessionid=9CB3FF1885A165A4642B8DB46024B384?sequence=1/ |archive-date=July 8, 2024 |access-date=January 4, 2019 |work=Statesman}}

McAlevey left the State University of New York at Buffalo before completing her undergraduate degree.{{Cite web |last=McAlevey |first=Jane |title=About Jane McAlevey |url=https://janemcalevey.com/about-jane/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230826180740/https://janemcalevey.com/about-jane/ |archive-date=August 26, 2023 |access-date=August 26, 2023 |website=JaneMcAlevey.com}} NOTE: Page includes photos of corroborating sources, such as newspaper articles. In 2010, at the urging of Frances Fox Piven, McAlevey returned to university to pursue a PhD. In 2015, she earned a doctorate in sociology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY), under the supervision of Piven and advised by James Jasper and Dan Clawson. She then completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law School (2015–2017).{{cite thesis |last=McAlevey |first=Jane F. |date=2015 |title=No Shortcuts: A Case for Organizing |type=PhD |page=iii |publisher=Graduate Center, CUNY |oclc=949906889 |id={{ProQuest|1689441854}}}}{{Cite web |title=Jane McAlevey |url=https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/people/jane-mcalevey/ |access-date=July 8, 2024 |publisher=UC Berkeley Labor Center |language=en-US |archive-date=July 5, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240705083124/https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/people/jane-mcalevey/ |url-status=live }}

Career

After leaving university, McAlevey traveled through Central America, spending time in Nicaragua working to support the revolution led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front.{{Cite web |last=Earle |first=Ethan |date=July 8, 2024 |title=Jane McAlevey Knew We Could Win |url=https://jacobin.com/2024/07/jane-mcalevey-organizing-for-power-trainings |access-date=July 25, 2024 |website=Jacobin}} She then moved to California to work out of David Brower's Earth Island Institute on a project aimed at educating the environmental movement in the United States about the ecological consequences of US military and economic policy in Central America. She served as co-director of EPOCA, the Environmental Project on Central America.{{cite book|author1=Deborah McCarthy Auriffeille|author2=Daniel Faber|title=Foundations for Social Change: Critical Perspectives on Philanthropy and Popular Movements|pages=183–185|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ma4hAQAAQBAJ|date=September 1, 2005|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=978-0-7425-8043-5|access-date=January 5, 2019|archive-date=July 8, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240708220528/https://books.google.com/books?id=ma4hAQAAQBAJ|url-status=live}} After working on coalition building in the US and in the international environmental movement for two years, she was recruited by John Gaventa to work at the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee, where she served as an educator and as Deputy Director.{{cite news |author= |date=November 4, 1985 |title=The Labor Center Welcomes New Senior Policy Fellow Jane McAlevey! |work=Center for Labor Research and Education |url=http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/labor-center-welcomes-new-policy-fellow-jane-mcalevey/ |access-date=July 26, 2019 |archive-date=July 27, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190727055350/http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/labor-center-welcomes-new-policy-fellow-jane-mcalevey/ |url-status=live }}

=Work for labor unions=

When the New Voices leadership came to power at the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) in 1996, McAlevey was recruited by senior AFL-CIO leaders to work for their organizing department and head up an experimental multi-union campaign in Stamford, Connecticut.{{cite book|author=Steve Early|title=Save Our Unions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nN4VCgAAQBAJ|page=238|date=November 2013|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-1-58367-428-4|access-date=January 5, 2019|archive-date=July 8, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240708220528/https://books.google.com/books?id=nN4VCgAAQBAJ|url-status=live}} From 1997 to 2001, she ran the Stamford Organizing Project, an unusual experimental approach built around a multi-union partnership – a rarity – and extensive community involvement.{{Cite web |last=Fine |first=Janice |date=Dec 14, 2000 |title=Building Community Unions |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/building-community-unions/ |access-date=July 25, 2024 |website=The Nation}} It was her first foray into union organizing, where she developed a model for what she called "whole-worker" organizing, bringing together union members and community with the view that they were not two separate groups.{{Cite magazine |last=Schirmer |first=Eleni |date=June 10, 2020 |title=Jane McAlevey's Vision for the Future of American Labor |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/jane-mcaleveys-vision-for-the-future-of-american-labor |access-date=August 25, 2023 |magazine=The New Yorker |archive-date=August 25, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230825172949/https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/jane-mcaleveys-vision-for-the-future-of-american-labor |url-status=live }}

From the AFL-CIO, McAlevey became the national Deputy Director for Strategic Campaigns of the Health Care Division of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), from 2002 to 2004. In 2004, she was appointed Executive Director and Chief Negotiator for SEIU Nevada, a state-based union that went on to success in achieving employer-paid family healthcare, preventing the rollback of public pensions, and using an approach to contract negotiations that gives workers the right to sit in on their workplace negotiations.{{cite news |last=Coolican |first=Patrick |date=December 10, 2006 |title=New face of labor has heart, drive |work=Las Vegas Sun |url=http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2006/dec/10/new-face-of-labor-has-heart-drive/ |access-date=August 30, 2023 |archive-date=May 31, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230531163033/https://lasvegassun.com/news/2006/dec/10/new-face-of-labor-has-heart-drive/ |url-status=live }}

=Scholarly work and consulting=

In 2009, McAlevey was diagnosed with cancer and forced to take a break from her work to undergo treatment. While bedridden, she began writing a memoir of her years in labor organizing, which eventually became her first book, Raising Expectations and Raising Hell (Verso Books, 2012), named by Nation magazine as the “most valuable book of 2012”. After a year of treatment, she returned to university to pursue a PhD. Her doctoral dissertation became her second book, No Shortcuts (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Her studies completed, McAlevey returned to labor organizing, and continued to write, producing two more books, A Collective Bargain (Ecco Press, 2020), and Rules to Win By with Abby Lawlor (Oxford University Press, 2023).{{cite podcast |work=KBLA |author=Tavis Smiley |title=Tavis Smiley Interviews Jane McAlevey about her new book Rules to Win By: Power and Participation in Union Negotiations |url=https://post.futurimedia.com/kblaam/playlist/listen-8722.html=2023-04-06 |access-date=April 6, 2023 |archive-date=April 6, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230406170631/https://post.futurimedia.com/kblaam/playlist/listen-8722.html=2023-04-06 |url-status=live }}

McAlevey, an engaging speaker, reached global audiences when, starting in 2019, she led an intensive six-week online course, Organizing for Power (O4P), at the Berlin-based Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, a democratic socialist policy nonprofit. Over four years, over 40 thousand people in over 100 countries logged onto the workshops, which were translated into 19 languages.

In 2019, McAlevey was named Senior Policy Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.{{Cite web |title=People |url=https://irle.berkeley.edu/about/people/ |access-date=August 25, 2023 |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |date=June 24, 2022 |archive-date=August 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230826032500/https://irle.berkeley.edu/about/people/ |url-status=live }} Also that year, she was named Strikes correspondent at The Nation; in 2023, she became a columnist for the magazine.{{cite web |author=Press Room |date=June 18, 2019 |title=New 'Nation' Editor D.D. Guttenplan Names Jeet Heer National-Affairs Correspondent and Jane McAlevey Strikes Correspondent |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/guttenplan-jeet-heer-jane-mcalevey/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190710175742/https://www.thenation.com/article/guttenplan-jeet-heer-jane-mcalevey/ |archive-date=July 10, 2019 |access-date=July 26, 2019 |work=The Nation}}{{Cite web |title=Jane McAlevey |url=https://www.thenation.com/authors/jane-mcalevey/ |access-date=August 24, 2023 |work=The Nation |date=February 16, 2011 |archive-date=August 25, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230825012726/https://www.thenation.com/authors/jane-mcalevey/ |url-status=live }} She alternated between organizing and writing.{{Cite web |date=July 8, 2024 |title="She Usually Won." Remembering Jane McAlevey, 1964–2024 |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/jane-mcalevey-obituary-labor-organizing/ |work=The Nation |access-date=July 8, 2024 |archive-date=July 8, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240708220528/https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/jane-mcalevey-obituary-labor-organizing/ |url-status=live }}

Whole-worker organizing

McAlevey's whole-worker organizing model views workers and the community they live in as a whole: workers are part of the community, and community members engage in work. She explained, “What almost no union does is actually organize their members as members in their own communities to build community power. I teach workers to take over their unions and change them." The underlying theory of change requires a systematic, grassroots mass organization of workers.

Central to her approach is the labor-intensive task of having one-on-one conversations with each constituent. Organizers' main activity is listening, in order to identify people's most pressing issues, with interjected specific questions that frame "the hard question," asking the individual to choose between enduring the problems alone or joining in collective action. A strike in this whole-worker model requires sustained action by an overwhelming majority of workers to put maximum pressure on management.{{cite news |last=Wills |first=Tom |date=December 21, 2021 |title=In Berlin, Overworked Hospital Staff Went on Strike for a Month — and Won |url=https://jacobinmag.com/2021/12/overwork-berlin-german-health-care-system-drg-strike-nurses-verdi-hospitals/ |access-date=February 12, 2022 |archive-date=February 13, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220213002232/https://jacobinmag.com/2021/12/overwork-berlin-german-health-care-system-drg-strike-nurses-verdi-hospitals/ |url-status=live }}

Public debate

McAlevey was active in the public sphere, in American and international media. She contended that only workers have the power, through organization, to force significant change in the workplace and in society at large.{{Cite web |last=Uetricht |first=Micah |date=May 7, 2023 |title=Jane McAlevey's Plan for How to Build a Fighting Labor Movement |url=https://jacobin.com/2023/05/jane-mcalevey-interview-labor-movement-strategy-whole-worker-organizing-supermajority-leadership/ |access-date=September 1, 2023 |magazine=Jacobin |archive-date=September 1, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230901173216/https://jacobin.com/2023/05/jane-mcalevey-interview-labor-movement-strategy-whole-worker-organizing-supermajority-leadership/ |url-status=live }} She advocated for a complete restructuring of how a majority of labor unions today operate, including their approaches to leadership development, bargaining, allocation of resources, and relationship to politics.{{Cite web |last=Gindin |first=Sam |date=December 8, 2016 |title=The Power of Deep Organizing |url=https://jacobin.com/2016/12/jane-mcalevey-unions-organizing-workers-socialism/ |access-date=September 1, 2023 |magazine=Jacobin |archive-date=September 1, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230901174346/https://jacobin.com/2016/12/jane-mcalevey-unions-organizing-workers-socialism/ |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |title=We're in a Class War. Jane McAlevey Actually Acted Like It. |url=https://jacobin.com/2024/07/jane-mcalevey-labor-movement-obituary |access-date=July 8, 2024 |magazine=Jacobin |language=en-US |archive-date=July 8, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240708202200/https://jacobin.com/2024/07/jane-mcalevey-labor-movement-obituary |url-status=live }}

Commenting on the current state of social movement organizations in general, McAlevey found an overreliance on people who are already in agreement with a cause. She describes the three common approaches to change: advocacy, mobilization, and organization. Advocacy relies on experts, lawyers, and lobbyists, usually funded through donations, to promote a cause. Mobilization, which McAlevey calls "shallow organizing", seeks to motivate like-minded people to act on their belief through actions such as demonstrations or voting. Organization, the hardest task, engages with whole populations, including those who have opposing opinions or have yet to form one, seeking to expand membership for future mobilization. According to McAlevey, the reliance on advocacy and mobilization by today's unions and social movement groups is "the main reason why modern movements have not replicated the kinds of gains achieved by earlier labor and civil rights movements."{{Harvnb|Earle|2024}} "Jane’s core theory of labor organizing, as it developed through her campaign experiences, was that American trade unions had moved away from the kind of organizing developed in the first half of the twentieth century in favor of what she called “shallow organizing.” The same approach is more commonly known as “mobilizing”: essentially getting people to turn out to large demonstrations without any plan for what to do beyond the demonstration."

Personal life

In 2009, McAlevey was diagnosed with early-stage ovarian cancer and underwent a year of intensive treatment.

On April 14, 2024, McAlevey announced on her website that she had entered home hospice care the week before, a result of a multiple myeloma cancer diagnosed in the fall of 2021.{{Cite web |date=April 14, 2024 |title=Latest News |url=https://janemcalevey.com/writing/latest-news/ |access-date=April 15, 2024 |publisher=Jane McAlevey |language=en-US |archive-date=April 16, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240416024905/https://janemcalevey.com/writing/latest-news/ |url-status=live }} On April 23, during an interview on Democracy Now! discussing the United Auto Workers unionization win at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee, McAlevey stated that she had exhausted conventional treatment and clinical trial drugs: "They thought I would be dead a few weeks ago. I'm out again. I'm riding my bike. I'm on your show. And I'm going to fight until the last dying minute, because that's what American workers deserve."{{Cite web |date=April 23, 2024 |title=Labor Organizer Jane McAlevey on UAW's Astounding Victory in VW Tennessee & Her Fight Against Cancer |url=https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/23/jane_mcalevey_uaw_volkswagen_us_labor |access-date=May 3, 2024 |work=Democracy Now! |archive-date=July 8, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240708220529/https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/23/jane_mcalevey_uaw_volkswagen_us_labor |url-status=live }}

McAlevey died from multiple myeloma on July 7, 2024, at the age of 59, at her cabin in Muir Beach, California.{{cite news |last1=Roosevelt |first1=Margot |title=Jane F. McAlevey, Who Empowered Workers Across the Globe, Dies at 59 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/business/jane-mcalevey-dead.html |work=The New York Times |date=July 7, 2024 |access-date=July 7, 2024 |archive-date=July 7, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240707230024/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/business/jane-mcalevey-dead.html |url-status=live }}

Writing in The Nation after McAlevey's death, journalist, academic and organizer Eleni Schirmer described "Jane’s hallmark style: big, bulging goals and a basketball-like execution plan—the precision of a thousand tiny repetitions; inviting people to touch their power, then watching them grab it for their own; the grinning, sweaty devotion to the team; the rapture of winning."{{Cite web |last=Schirmer |first=Eleni |date=Sep 6, 2024 |title="You Blitz!" Jane McAlevey's Answer to What to Do When We Don't Have Enough Time. |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/society/remembering-jane-mcalevey-blitz-profile/ |access-date=Nov 6, 2024 |website=The Nation}}

Bibliography

=Books=

  • Raising Expectations and Raising Hell, My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement, {{ISBN|9781781683156}}, published by Verso in 2012.
  • No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age, {{ISBN|9780190624712}}, published by Oxford University Press in 2016.
  • A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy, {{ISBN|9780062908599}}, published by Ecco Press in 2020.{{cite news |last1=Brown |first1=Alleen |title=The Climate Movement Doesn't Know How to Talk With Union Members About Green Jobs |url=https://theintercept.com/2020/03/09/climate-labor-movements-unions-green-new-deal/ |access-date=March 12, 2020 |work=The Intercept |date=March 9, 2020 |archive-date=March 11, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200311235401/https://theintercept.com/2020/03/09/climate-labor-movements-unions-green-new-deal/ |url-status=live }}
  • Rules to Win By: Power and Participation in Union Negotiations, {{ISBN| 9780197690499}}, by Jane McAlevey and Abby Lawlor, published by Oxford University Press in 2023.{{cite web |title=Jane F. McAlevey — Rules to Win by: Power and Participation in Union Negotiations – with Sara Nelson — at Conn Ave |url=https://www.politics-prose.com/jane-f-mcalevey/ |access-date=April 15, 2023 |work=Politics and Prose Bookstore |date=March 21, 2023 |archive-date=April 19, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230419223509/https://www.politics-prose.com/jane-f-mcalevey |url-status=live }}

=Refereed articles=

  • "The Strike as the Ultimate Structure Test," Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy 2, no. 3 (Fall 2018): 122–135.
  • "The Crisis of New Labor and Alinsky's Legacy: Revisiting the Role of the Organic Grassroots Leaders in Building Powerful Organizations and Movements," Politics & Society 43, no. 3 (September 2015): 415–441.
  • "It Takes a Community: Building Unions from the Outside In," New Labor Forum 12, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 23–32.

References

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