With Justice for All?

Indeed, wherever she is, or whatever gadget she uses to communicate, McAlevey is relentless about her message: An economy that showers benefits on a privileged few and ignores the pressing needs of the many is neither just nor sustainable. "We see this movement as the voice for the working poor," says McAlevey. "When we first started here, we knocked on doors every night, talking to workers. That's what we do. And two things struck us. Time and again, we'd go to someone's house at 8 or 9 at night, and we'd find the kids home alone. We'd say, 'Where's Mom?' And they'd say, 'She's at work.' And we'd say, 'Well, doesn't she work from 7 to 3?' And the kids would say, 'She's at the hotel job now.' These are not irresponsible parents. These are communities in which the parents are each working two jobs and sometimes a third, and the kids are home alone."

One city, two worlds. So it goes in Stamford -- and across the economy at large. The numbers are so stark, and so consistent, as to be virtually undeniable. In 1998, the top-earning 1% of Americans had as much income as the lowest-earning 100 million Americans. In that same year, Microsoft founder Bill Gates amassed more personal wealth than the poorest 43% of Americans combined. Meanwhile, according to a new economic study released by the Conference Board, the poverty rate among full-time American workers is at its highest level since the early 1980s, when the country was just coming off a recession.

But those are merely bloodless statistics. What's so compelling about McAlevey's organizing work is that every day, she encounters Stamford's two starkly divided worlds. Her job is to force them together, rather than let one continue to ignore the other. "There is less a 'new economy' than there is a 'new morality,'" McAlevey argues.

"There's a new morality that says to everyone, 'Technology is great, money is great, let's retire at 40 and travel the world.' But when we only focus on the top segment of society, we make a huge mistake. We have to be careful with our exuberance about the number of millionaires that are being created. There's another side to this economy. We're talking about two parents with sometimes four or five jobs between them because they can't pay the rent. This is not a life that anyone is choosing. It is a morally bankrupt system. We have to pay attention to what our obligation is -- and that is to raise all boats, not just the boats of a privileged segment of society."

Network Effects

The Stamford Organizing Project, which took shape in mid-1998, embraces a set of operating principles that would sound familiar to any new-economy company. It is built around a strategic alliance of four unions that have rarely cooperated so closely in the past: Local 217 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE); Justice for Janitors Local 531 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU); District 1199 of the New England Health Care Employees Union, SEIU; and Region 9A of the United Auto Workers (UAW). McAlevey and her 16-person crew work with organizers from those unions to swap ideas, coordinate tactics, and draft a common agenda.

Also, the campaign has been fashioned with a keen eye on the competitive environment. The AFL-CIO organizers chose Stamford because of its low unemployment rate (which meant that workers couldn't be replaced easily) and its enormous wage disparity. And McAlevey's team has targeted industries that can't relocate if the unions turn up the heat -- such industries as building services, government, health care, and hotels.

Finally, McAlevey and her organizing colleagues have adopted an ambitious strategic vision for their alliance -- a definition of success that transcends labor's traditional fixation on wages, hours, and working conditions. Their agenda revolves around the social challenge of affordable housing -- and the proposition that people who work hard in a community should be able to live in good conditions in that same community. "One of the biggest issues facing every mayor in the country is the crisis of affordable housing," says McAlevey. "And it's not just a crisis for low-end workers. The housing problem will eventually choke the economy in a place like Stamford."

It's hard to argue the point that McAlevey makes. Real-estate prices in Stamford have bounded out of control, making it the third most expensive place in the country to live, behind San Francisco and San Jose. As a result, service workers, most of whom are black or Hispanic, have been forced to move out of town to live in places like Bridgeport or Port Chester. "You see the trend just by watching the trains," McAlevey notes. "The commuter trains to and from New York City are almost all white, and the local trains are almost all black and brown. Those are our workers."