Third Place Books welcomes labor attorney Abby Lawlor to our Seward Park store for a discussion of her book, co-authored by Jane F. McAlevey, Rules to Win By: Power and Participation in Union Negotiations. Lawlor will be joined in conversation by Heidi Groover, the President of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild and a real estate reporter at the Seattle Times. This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required in advance.
Please note: Dean Spade, previously scheduled to moderate this event, is no longer able to attend.
Co-sponsored by The Washington State Labor Education and Research Center and the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies at the University of Washington
This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!
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Drawing insights from recent hard-won union negotiation campaigns, Jane McAlevey and Abby Lawlor look to the workers leading some of the toughest fights today to provide a masterclass in participatory social change. In the face of a small committee of middle management and their lawyers, most unions put forward a similarly small committee of worker representatives who negotiate behind closed doors. This book focuses on the nuts and bolts of a different approach: high-participation negotiations. It features six case studies from the last five years: Boston hotel workers, educators in New Jersey, nurses in rural Massachusetts and Philadelphia, reporters from the L.A. Times and Law360, and hospital workers in Germany fighting for their patients and their own lives in the pandemic. In each of these cases, workers used the collective bargaining process to achieve transformative contracts through deep organizing and member-driven strategy.
Abby Lawlor is an attorney, organizer, and researcher based in Seattle, Washington. She is currently a legal fellow at Public Rights Project. Abby spent five years as a strategic researcher with UNITE HERE Local 8 where she provided support to hotel and food service workers in Washington and Oregon fighting to win their own union contracts. In 2016, she led a successful citywide ballot initiative campaign to pass a first-of-its-kind ordinance addressing sexual harassment in the hotel industry and enshrining protections first achieved through collective bargaining into Seattle law.
Heidi Groover is the President of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild and a real estate reporter at the Seattle Times. She previously reported for The Stranger and the Inlander.
Want a signed edition of the featured book, but can't make it to the event? Order through our website or over the phone, and write your request for a signature or personalization in the comments field at checkout. Please call the hosting store if you're placing your order within 24 hours of the event.
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