The Building of a Tentants Protest Organizaiton

Abstract

Tenants' abilities to influence changes in their housing costs and conditions are constrained by their lack of political and economic power. Control over tenants' housing belongs to the property owners who suspend temporary use of their holdings in return for financial compensation. Tenants do not have the economic resources to own and hence, control their housing and are often politically weak because of tenant transiency and the absence of sustained tenant organizations. Through tenants unions which can act collectively, make demands, arbitrate, and most important-withhold their rent, tenants may acquire the needed economic and political resources to attain some control over this important area of consumption. This article documents the process through which tenants work to gain power vis-a-vis their landlord by organizing a tenants union. Based on six months of participant observation, we show the developmental process for organizing tenants within one large apartment complex. Although these tenants successfully build a cohesive union whose members are committed to withholding their rent, they fail to influence any change in their housing. This paradox of successful organizing and the failure of the organization is examined in terms of (1) the way in which inequality is legally structured within the landlord-tenant relationship and (2) the efficacy of grass-roots organizations which do not disaffirm legitimate authority structures.