What is a Tenant Union?
A group of tenants who form a union or an association in order to discuss and find solutions to issues faced in their place of living. This can be achieved through demand letters, press conferences, and rent strikes. Tenant unions can also find ways to gather resources amongst each other and through other organizations locally, to meet needs in their place of living that bargaining conditions with the landlord won’t allow in a timely way. Tenant unions can be at the level of individual properties or linked with other properties in a landlord’s portfolio, and can even extend to a city, state, national, and international association. The housing-related issues faced by the homeless and mortgage owning populations are also of high importance in the struggle for better and more affordable housing, as understanding all aspects of the housing problem will lead to developing the best solution to it. Housing associations also benefit greatly from pursuing political campaigns and developing political leadership from within their ranks in order to stabilize union gains and further advance their interests through legislative and legal wins.
Why form a tenant union?
Protection from Retaliation
A landlord can more easily pick on an individual tenant in isolation than an organized group of tenants who can utilize press exposure, legal advocacy, and other tactics. Collectivizing creates links of protective strength between the tenants involved and outwards to advocates in the community.
Collective Power
The collective voice is louder than the individual one. The group can achieve things that the individual cannot. A team of residents can divide labor between bargaining, fund raising, event coordination, and so on. With multiple people invested, there are multiple functions of desire driving the process which is more powerful than one; a person working in isolation may get discouraged, when we are invested in the outcome for more than just ourselves, it is more difficult to give up in tougher moments of working together.
Social integration
Knowing and being connected with your neighborhood is beneficial beyond the level of enjoyment of interpersonal relationships. People in any given apartment complex or neighborhood embody a whole range of skills, social connections, and physical resources that can be shared for the benefit of all involved. In reality neighbors as individuals have far more of a vested interest in developing relationships of trust and mutual support with others than hiding away in their apartments. The needs of the individual in any community are met through the unified actions of the collective.
Generate Shared Buy-In
Our successful actions in improving our living conditions set an example to other community members who would have otherwise been discouraged to improve their living conditions. The more the fire of organized neighbors spreads, the more successful we will be in asserting and improving our rights across landlord portfolios as well as cities, and states.
How to Start a Union Where You Live
Talk to Neighbors
Fed up with your landlord’s behavior? Know of any neighbors who are too? Start discussing the idea of forming a union and the benefits that are offered by putting together meetings to address common housing needs. Your right to associate is protected by the Montana Landlord/Tenant Act.
Knock Doors
If you and a few other neighbors decide that having union meetings are worth your time, start inviting people you are most familiar with to discussions. Ask them to invite the neighbors they know best. Print flyers if needed: Local Print Store - Mike's Print Shop
Begin Documentation
Start to list out numerically, the dwelling units in your neighborhood, apartment complex, or trailer park and the issues occurring in each unit and the general space, as well as any other important infrastructural information. The organizers should identify the most common and significant issues for purposes of issuing requests and for potentially informing the press, or significant figures in the community.
Assign Roles
Break the needs of the association up into different roles on a union team. Individuals or subgroups of individuals on the team may be assigned to documentation work, event coordination, landlord financial research, fund raising, communications, and so on. As the effort continues, for best results, discussions between each component of the union must be frequent and ongoing. Use our sample template..
Develop a Plan
Now that the consolidation of both neighborhood issues and skills sets has occurred, it’s time to create a scheme for improving conditions. What will be the first action of the association? Typically it is a collective request letter and/or a press conference, but each association will find its own optimal solution in any particular moment. The tenant association may consider higher level engagement with its landlord if initial tactics do not bring about desired results, such as involving legal assistance or engaging in collective withholding of rent. Getting desired results is likely to be a sustained effort with coordination needing to occur across properties in your landlord’s portfolio as well as with tenants across the city, the state, and the nation.
Connect With Missoula Neighbors United
We can add planning and coordination energy as well as help build up leadership and union infrastructure for your organizing effort. To us, community building is essential to human well-being and survival, and therefore, very important to us. We want to build something impactful for all involved.
Request Organizer Support