be passed in the 1970s. In addition, Hurd explains that the 1980s were a very troubling time for unions in the U.S. as a result of "the anti-union reign of Ronald Reagan" and "Twin recessions". Both of these factors contributed to the decline of union membership that so infamously characterized the labor movement in the U.S. in the 1980s. 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." Therefore, U.S. unions were forced to try some new tactics in the hopes of regaining the membership they were losing. 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. 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", and the goal of the institute was "to train union organizers." While, as Richard Hurd suggests, the attempts at reigniting the flame of union membership were largely unsuccessful, in 1995, former SEIU President 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" to enhance the strategy of employing the organizing model throughout the AFL–CIO, and he encouraged unions to begin "devoting 30% of their budgets to recruitment." 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," but "Most unions have increased the funding of their organizing departments, and many have devoted substantial resources to the effort." This is how the AFL–CIO tried to implement the organizing model in response to the membership crisis. In the mid-1980s, the 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