Because union organizing is commonly studied as a single eve,lt rather
than the beginning of a process, little is understood about how union
organizing strategies continue to affect workers after campaigns end.
In this article, I analyze interviews with workers organized by two u
nion campaign strategies, the ''comprehensive campaign'' and the ''bli
tz,'' which differ significantly in the degree of participation they f
oster among the rank and file. I apply Carole Pateman's (1970) partici
patory democracy theory and Erving Goffman's (1974) framework analysis
to understand the meanings workers invoke to understand the campaigns
and their relations to the unions. By looking at three stages within
these two union organizing processes, I examine the ways that worker a
ctivism diffuses after the campaigns and across organizations.