New York has been a center of tenant organizing for over a century. But we know from our living conditions and still-skyrocketing rents, from the tenants forced to sleep in shelters, outdoors, or leave New York entirely, that landlords and real estate continue to decide who has access to decent and safe housing. They have too much control over our housing system and our homes. And, they are itching to beat back the progress we’ve made.
Our goal is to win safe, dignified, affordable homes. How do we win it? By organizing together!
We can use our collective power to force our landlords to give us more control over our housing and to ensure we have dignified living conditions. A tenant union is a group of neighbors that come together around shared issues to hold their landlord accountable to ensure dignified living conditions. A tenant union can win demands that no single tenant could win on their own. We are stronger together than we are alone.
Sign up for an upcoming training on organizing your building
Get the Guide to Organize A Tenant Union in Your Building
This guide has the basics to help you organize a majority, strike-ready tenant union in your building, negotiate with your landlord, and win your tenant union’s collective demands.
We’ll cover how to:
1) Talk to your neighbors
2) Build a core organizing team
3) Have a meeting in your building
4) Create shared demands
5) Formalize your tenant union by signing union cards
6) Go public with your union
7) Escalate!
8) Negotiate/Bargain with your landlord
9) Win and maintain control and dignity over our homes
Sign up to Get the Handbook
As you start to talk to your neighbors and organize around core demands, the Tenant Bloc is here to support with training and on-the-ground support. You can reach us anytime at info@tenantbloc.org or complete our intake at https://act.tenantbloc.org/tenant-union to set up a 1:1 with Tenant Bloc and your organizing team.
Credit where due: we didn’t invent these ideas – tenants have been organizing and winning for decades – and we created this guide inspired by other resources from the Tenant Union Federation, the Los Angeles Tenants Union, Connecticut Tenants Union, Tenants and Neighbors Bay Area, Labor Notes, Emergency Worker Organizing Committee, as well as our own organizing experience.