Goodbye Jane

After attending today's Organizing For Power memorial to mark the passing of lead trainer Jane McAlevey, I decided to put my graduation certificate online as a little personal tribute and share some memories and hard-earned lessons of my own.

I discovered Jane's work at an organizer training event hosted by Vänsterpartiet Malmö, and by the time the course began I'd already read all her books. Getting to participate in a "fishbowl" exercise with her during one of the training sessions is a deeply cherished memory.

One of my few certainties about the Spotify campaign is that every aspect of it that fell short of my expectations can be understood in terms of this methodology and all the situations where enacting it would have produced better outcomes. It's a lesson I take every opportunity I get to pass on to other fledgling organizers.

Jane's belief in workers and their ability to win remains contagious beyond her death. The anecdotes at today's memoral about her commitment to raising up those around her filled me with determination of my own. At Spotify, you normally couldn't get the bosses to shut up about the importance of a "growth mindset". I still remember how jarring it felt in the captive audience meetings when they flipped that around 180 degrees to explain that the inexperience of the union representatives there would permanently hinder their everyday change management work if a union deal imposed an obligation to negotiate under MBL § 11. I take every opportunity I get to remind my former colleagues that they don't have to only have a growth mindset when the bosses tell them to. And it's a great inoculation topic that I always recommend organizers elsewhere not to skip over.

Jane's work rate and sense of urgency was almost legendary. I like Ethan Earle's take on this most of all.

For foes and friends alike, Jane had something of a magical aura about her. That said, she always sought to shed that perception. Everything she did was the result of hard work and practice — and all of it can be reproduced by those willing to put in the time that she did.

So, read her books and take her trainings, but not to deify her — nothing could be further from her mission. Take them so that you can put into practice the same methods that Jane McAlevey spent a lifetime practicing, modelling, and instilling in others. And then, as she would so often say at the end of a session: Go forth and win!

In truth, I've noticed a similar intensity of spirit in just about everyone I've met in the labour movement. And if you're in tech, given that you're surviving this industry's treadmill of eternal retraining as your old knowledge races ever faster towards obsoletion, you can take it as read that you have what it takes to learn how to build collective power and win.

The next Organizing For Power training program begins in February 2025. If you can put together a group of 10 or more in time for registration in December, you can get yourselves the best organizer training around and max out your chances of winning your own campaign. Go ahead and pre-register now and you'll be one step along the way already.