Workers 'can still win really big.' How labor can demand more

LOS ANGELES — Longtime labor organizer Jane McAlevey has some advice for what workers should demand of employers and union leaders: Don't sign gag orders and commit to transparency.

That's what McAlevey, the author of several books on union organizing and negotiating contracts, recently told a room of union staff and members at the United Food and Commercial Workers union Local 770's home base in downtown Los Angeles. She was discussing her new book, "Rules to Win By: Power and Participation in Union Negotiations,"published in March, just in time for L.A.'s summer of strikes.

A strike in March by bus drivers, custodians, special education assistants and other low-paid workers at Los Angeles Unified School District set the tone for the rest of 2023, and since then, it's been a busy and "hella exciting" time for labor in Southern California, said McAlevey, a senior policy fellow at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

But broadly there are still obstacles to workers securing major wins, McAlevey said. Namely, unions' practice of using small committees of worker representatives to negotiate labor contracts behind closed doors.

In the book, and Law360, and hospital workers in Germany.