Martin Manley (born August 27, 1952) is a former US Assistant Secretary of Labor, developer of a US government agency, entrepreneur and founder of online bookseller Alibris.
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Manley was born in Azusa, California and attended Lowell High School in Whittier, California. During the 1970s and early 1980s, Manley was a prominent California labor organizer. He held held positions with the Hotel, Restaurant Workers in Monterey, California(now UNITE), Hospital Workers Local 250 of the Service Employees (SEIU), and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). He was among the earliest union organizers in Silicon Valley, directed a large community-based campaign in Silicon Valley during the1984 US Presidential election, and was a frequent and prominent critic of AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland.
Following the 1984 presidential election, Manley became one of the few union leaders to enter Harvard Business School, where he graduated with distinction in 1987 and joined McKinsey & Company in San Francisco.[1]
In 1993, the newly elected Bill Clinton, appointed Manley as US Assistant Secretary of Labor under Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.[2]
Manley proposed to create a new federal agency which became the US Department of Labor's Office of the American Workplace (OAW) after confirmation by the president and senate. The OAW was charged with promoting innovation in US workplaces.
In 1997 Manley founded the major e-commerce bookseller Alibris and served as the company's CEO for 10 years. Alibris integrates inventory from second-hand booksellers from around the world and is considered a classic example of a Long Tail ecommerce retailer.[3]
By 2000, Alibris was a significant internet retailer cited by The New York Times for having “radically changed the buying and selling of used books”.[4] Oak Hill Capital purchased Alibris in 2006.[5][6]