Jane McAlevey | |
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Born | New York City, New York, U.S. | October 12, 1964
Died | July 7, 2024 Muir Beach, California, U.S. | (aged 59)
Education | State University of New York, Buffalo (BA) Graduate Center, CUNY (MA, PhD) |
Occupation(s) | Union, environmental and community organizer, scholar, author, political commentator |
Years active | 1984–2024 |
Website | Official website |
Jane F. McAlevey (October 12, 1964 – July 7, 2024) was an American union organizer, author, and political commentator.[1][2][3] 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).