Jane F. McAlevey, who empowered workers around the world, dies at 59
After leading successful campaigns for the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union from 1997 to 2008, Ms. McAlevey moved into consulting, coaching union groups across the country on how to motivate rank-and-file members, attract new members and combat employers’ aggressive anti-union tactics.
She has also worked with immigrant rights organizations, tenant groups, and climate activists, and traveled internationally to advise German hospital unions, Irish communications workers, and union leaders in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
A magnetic speaker with a dry sense of humor, Ms. McAlevey expanded her global reach in 2019. She taught a free, intensive six-week online course, “Organizing for powerat the Berlin-based Rosa Luxemburg Foundationa non-profit, democratic socialist organization. Over four years, 36,000 people in 130 countries logged into the workshops, which were simultaneously translated into a dozen languages, including Arabic, Hindi, Portuguese, and Russian.
Ms. McAlevey’s books and courses were based on long-established organizing techniques, said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University. “But ‘Jane’s charisma and teaching methods inspired people around the world, especially young people, to use their power as ordinary citizens to organize.'”
She also drew about 4,500 participants over four years to workshops at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, where she was a senior policy fellow. In 2022, United Food and Commercial Workers local No. 770, a large Southern California union, sent 100 members and staff to the workshops as it prepared to negotiate with grocery chains, said the group’s president, Kathy Finn.
