Organizing Institute - History

History

The OI has its roots in a failed organizing drive conducted by the AFL-CIO in the early 1980s. In 1979, the AFL-CIO began a large organizing project in the Deep South. The main thrust of this organizing effort came in Houston, Texas. Known as the Houston Organizing Project, the multi-union effort was budgeted at $1 million a year (nearly $2.5 million in inflation-adjusted 2007 dollars). But as the recession of the early 1980s took hold and employers vigorously resisted the AFL-CIO's efforts, the Houston Organizing Project collapsed.

Partly in response to the collapse of the Houston Organizing Project, in 1983 the AFL-CIO executive council began an extensive strategic planning project. A plan was adopted two years later which, among other things, endorsed higher levels of organizing.

Between 1985 and 1988, the AFL-CIO developed what subsequently became known as "the organizing model." The organizing model was introduced to AFL-CIO member unions in a massive, two-day telephone and video conference call on February 29 to March 1, 1988. An AFL-CIO training manual, Numbers that Count, was then published. The manual concluded unions were more effective when they used external, new-member organizing techniques with members who were already organized.

In 1988 and 1989, AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Thomas R. Donahue initiated discussions which led to the founding of the OI. Donahue, Donahue's assistant, a former director of organizing and field services at the AFL-CIO, the leaders of five AFL-CIO unions, and Richard Bensinger (then organizing director with the Service Employees International Union ) concluded that the primary problem with the Houston Organizing Project was not the coalition nature of the project or the recession but that few unions utilized rigorous organizing methods. Although it is not clear when the decision was made to found the OI, the organization was officially launched in the spring of 1989. The AFL-CIO and five unions—SEIU, UNITE, UFCW, AFSCME and the United Steelworkers—agreed to fund the OI.

The OI was established as an autonomous entity under the supervision of the AFL-CIO Organizing and Field Services Department. Bensinger was named the unit's first executive director.

One of the primary goals of the OI in its first years was not only to promote the organizing model but to reinvigorate the labor movement. An essential element in achieving this goal was the recruitment of non-union people into the labor movement. OI staff came to believe that labor organizers were often too old, too discouraged, and too committed to the existing political goals of their unions (which focused on contract servicing rather than organizing) to be effective. Additionally, many of these veteran staff were experienced only in older methods of union organizing, and did not have the skills or inclination to effectively combat new anti-union strategies and tactics utilized by employers. Bensinger and his immediate successors made a significant effort to recruit activists from the environmental, civil rights, and other progressive movements; activists who had experience in militant and disruptive direct action which caught the eye of the press and the public. OI staff believed that these young activists would bring a new level of commitment and energy to the labor movement.

The establishment of the OI angered some AFL-CIO staff, particularly those in the organizing department. They felt that the organization duplicated their efforts. But they also resented the ways in which AFL-CIO elected leaders and appointed staff denigrated their efforts and promoted the leaders and staff in the OI. Many veteran staff members felt that the years which they had spent gaining experience and building skills were being dismissed, while inexperienced OI staff with little or no experience in union organizing union-building were being held up as the salvation of the labor movement.