Editing Organizing model (section)

==History in the United States==
According to Richard W. Hurd, the history of the organizing model in the US began from the failure of a "labor law"<ref name="Hurd">Hurd, R. W. (2004). "The rise and fall of the organizing model in the U.S." [Electronic version]. Retrieved from Cornell University, ILR School site:
http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/articles/301/</ref> to be passed in the 1970s.<ref name="Hurd" /> In addition, Hurd explains that the 1980s were a very troubling time for unions in the US as a result of "the anti-union reign of Ronald Reagan"<ref name="Hurd" /> and "Twin recessions".<ref name="Hurd" /> Both of these factors contributed to the decline of union membership that so infamously characterized the labor movement in the US in the 1980s.<ref name="Hurd" /> In fact, Hurd says that, "The labor movement lost more than one-fifth of its private sector members during the first half of the 1980s."<ref name="Hurd" /> Therefore, US unions were forced to try some new tactics in the hopes of regaining the membership they were losing.<ref name="Hurd" />

In response to this labor crisis, the [[AFL–CIO]] made many attempts to renew its labor movement in the 1980s, but none of them were successful.<ref name="Hurd" /> However, in 1988, an AFL–CIO-organized [[teleconference]] of trade unionists recognized the potential of the nascent organizing model, gave it its name, and resolved to spread it throughout the trade-union movement: this was an element in the model's popularization. After the teleconference, the AFL–CIO, according to Hurd, established the "Organizing Institute",<ref name="Hurd" /> and the goal of the institute was "to train union organizers."<ref name="Hurd" /> While, as Richard Hurd suggests, the attempts at reigniting the flame of union membership were largely unsuccessful,<ref name="Hurd" /> in 1995, former SEIU President [[John Sweeney (labor leader)|John Sweeney]] was elected president of the AFL–CIO on the New Voice slate, on a platform of spreading the organizing model across the members of the federation. According to Richard Hurd, when Sweeney took over, he created an "Organizing Department"<ref name="Hurd" /> to enhance the strategy of employing the organizing model throughout the AFL–CIO,<ref name="Hurd" /> and he encouraged unions to begin "devoting 30% of their budgets to recruitment."<ref name="Hurd" /> The extent of the success of this is disputed, with some suggesting that more rhetoric has changed than anything, but it did have at least some effect. Richard Hurd suggests that "The reality is that the individual national unions determine their own resource allocations and develop their own organizing programs,"<ref name="Hurd" /> but "Most unions have increased the funding of their organizing departments, and many have devoted substantial resources to the effort."<ref name="Hurd" /> This is how the AFL–CIO tried to implement the organizing model in response to the membership crisis.

In the mid-1980s, the [[Service Employees International Union|SEIU]] union found itself in a similar state of crisis. A period of intense internal discussion gave rise to the view that a radical program was needed to rebuild the union and make it relevant to current and potential members. The [[Justice for Janitors]] campaign was launched as the organizational spearhead of the SEIU's attempt to reinvigorate their membership; beginning in [[Denver, Colorado]], in 1985.  In addition to the Justice for Janitors campaign, according to Jennifer Jihye Chun, around the same time, the SEIU also engaged in campaigns for "home care workers"<ref name="Chun">Chun, J. J. (2009). ''Organizing at the Margins: The Symbolic Politics of labor in South Korea and the United States'', Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.</ref> in Los Angeles.<ref name="Chun" /> Chun says that "Through a combination of aggressive grassroots organizing strategies, a focused political action campaign, and mass worker mobilizations, SEIU organizers were able to sign up 15,000 workers."<ref name="Chun" />

Working along the lines described above, the SEIU experienced huge growth in membership and a significant number of high-profile public victories for workers. (Though some proportion of the SEIU's membership growth has resulted from mergers, such as with 1199). The tactics and strategies of the SEIU and Justice for Janitors go beyond the organizing model which is, as has been described, an approach to local-level organizing and campaigning. It applies to a drive for the recruitment of members and leaders on the level of a firm or city. Other aspects of the SEIU's strategies are national or international. For instance, the drive to gain industry-wide coverage across a large geographical base – i.e., to organize janitors not only within one building but across a whole city, state and eventually all across the US – or the advocacy of union mergers.