Jane LaTour joined the staff of the Association for Union Democracy in June 1989 and remained a strong ally and friend to AUD until her death in April of 2023. By 1989, when LaTour first came to be a part of AUD, she was already a well-seasoned veteran of rank-and-file union struggles. She had a particular interest in advancing the cause of equity for women and people of color within trade unions. The AUD’s Women Project focused on the struggles of women in unionized trade jobs and she became its director. Apropos of her work in union democracy activism generally is LaTour’s posthumous book Backroom Bargaining: Racketeering and Rebellion in New York City’s Labor Unions which was released in March 2026 by University of Illinois Press.