In 2005 in Houston, the average janitor was earning an hourly salary of $5.25, compared to $20 in New York City and $13.30 in Philadelphia and Chicago. The success of the Houston campaign was surprising due to the South's history of resistance to unionization and hostility to labor. The success of service employees was decreasing in 2005, as the percentage of private-sector workers dropped to 7.9. Julius Getman, a labor law professor at the University of Texas, says the Justice for Janitors effort is "the largest unionization campaign in the South in years." The AFL-CIO attempted a campaign in the 1980s known as the Houston Organizing Project, as the companies fought hard during a suffering economy to defeat the unionization effort.