SHOW / EPISODE

How to be a Labor Organizer, with Andrea Dehlendorf

2h 9m | Oct 15, 2026

In this episode, Roy talks with Andrea Dehlendorf who has spent the last three decades as a labor organizer. From organizing Las Vegas casino staff and janitors in Los Angeles to Walmart associates, Andrea finds leaders among everyday people, helps them recognize leadership skills they didn’t know they had, and brings them together to show their power.

Andrea is the Co-Lead of Democracy Takes Work, which encourages innovation and experimentation in organizing.

We learned what organizing is, how it begins, how to identify a leader and organize a committee, how to plan actions from stickers to strikes, how to map power and negotiate, and what happens after a win.

Andrea’s advice to anyone who wants to be an organizer: you can’t be a part time doctor, but you can organize where you work.

This Is Not Advice is Roy Bahat's attempt to understand every aspect of a job directly from the people who do it exceptionally – so that everyone who listens can take those lessons into whatever it is they do. Roy is a startup investor focused on the future of work at Bloomberg Beta and an MBA professor.

Chapters:

00:00:00 - Preview

00:05:30 - Becoming an organizer in the first place

00:15:00 - Getting ideas: choosing what to organize

00:27:30 - The craft of organizing

01:32:00 - The organization of organizing

01:40:30 - Understanding and improving “the system”

01:57:15 - Progressing in your “career” as an organizer

02:07:15 - Final words

Reading List:

No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age, Jane McAlevey

A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy, Jane McAlevey