Jane McAlevey’s first book, Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell), published by Verso Press, was named the “most valuable book of 2012” by The Nation Magazine. She has served as Executive Director and Chief Negotiator for SEIU Nevada, as National Deputy Director for Strategic Campaigns of the Healthcare Division for SEIU, and she was the Campaign Director of the one of the only successful multi-union, multi-year, geographic organizing campaigns for the national AFL-CIO (in Stamford, Connecticut). She has led power structure analyses and strategic planning trainings for a wide range of union and community organizations and has had extensive involvement in globalization and global environmental issues. She worked at the Highlander Research and Education Center as an educator (and as Deputy Director) in her early 20’s. McAlevey is a contributing writer at The Nation Magazine.

Jane will discuss the lessons learned from ten years of building strong local unions that win collective bargaining and political gains based on deep and extensive membership involvement, particularly in the context of the right-to-work state of Nevada and in the face of intensive union-busting efforts of for-profit hospital employers. She will shed light on the ongoing debates over how to rebuild union power in the face of austerity, growing inequality, and Conservative parties’ attacks on the basis of union organizational security.

For a sense of Jane’s take on these matters, see her interview with Laura Flanders or visit janemcalevey.com. Copies of Jane’s book will be available at the talk for $20.

Book talk co-sponsored by the Center for Labor Studies.

For Information about access, please contact Steve McKay at smckay@ucsc.edu. For information about the Sociology Colloquium Series: http://socyeventsucsc.wordpress.com.