A tenants union, also known as a renters' union or a tenants association, is a group of tenants that collectively organize to improve the conditions of their housing and mutually educate about their rights as renters. [1] [2] Groups may also lobby local officials to change housing policies or address homelessness.
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In 1966, Schwartz and Davis defined a tenant union as "an organization of tenants formed to bargain collectively with their landlord for an agreement defining the parties' mutual obligations. [3] [4] [5]
In 2024, Baltz defined tenant associations as groups of tenants, generally in the same building or development, who organize to collectively advocate against their landlord and tenant unions as membership-based organizations who collectively organize across properties or geographic regions. Tenant associations are often formed in buildings where tenants are agitated over evictions, rent increases, conditions, or treatment. They may operate independently in a single building or affiliate with wider tenant unions. Tenant unions draw membership from associations and help organize them or provide them support in self-organizing. [6]
Tenants join tenant unions and associations due to grievances with the landlord such as high rents and poor building maintenance to seek reduced costs and better quality housing. Tenant unions are modeled on labor unions, collectively joining tenants against landlords. [4] Tenant unions have also joined coalitions with other tenant unions at the city, state, and country level to campaign for more protections. [6] Tenant organizers refer to those who seek to help create tenant associations, unions, and campaigns or further their aims. They may be tenants in their own building, independent volunteers, or affiliates or employees of tenant unions and campaigns. [6]
Modern tenant organizing emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries alongside urbanization and concerns about housing conditions. [7] The International Union of Tenants, founded in 1926 in Switzerland, represents one of the earliest attempts at coordinating tenant organizations internationally. [8]
The movement gained momentum in the post-World War II era as housing shortages and urban development created new tensions between tenants and landlords. [9] Countries' approaches to housing policy differ across political situations. [10]
Tenant unions engage in rent strikes to make demands of landlords and legislators, create eviction defense networks to prevent landlords evicting renters, and reoccupy housing from which renters where evicted. [6]
Tenant unions may be subject to laws such as those regarding legal rent strikes and affirmative lawsuits. Tenant unions and associations are generally free to devise their own membership structures, goals, and processes due to the nonexistence of laws regulating their structure or obligations. Tenant unions and associations may register as nonprofits or remain unincorporated. [6]
When tenants have a legal right to occupy their apartment they can leverage their occupancy and the law. Conversely, tenants with more limited rights tend to advocate towards governmental actors or engage in squatting or eviction blockades. [6]
In Germany, tenants are strongly protected, with complex legal rules on when a landlord is entitled to raise the rent. [11] Membership in tenant advocacy organizations includes legal advice. [12] Rents are determined in comparison to similar units in the neighborhood. [13]
The UK has seen growth in tenant unions, [14] including London Renters Union [15] and the Greater Manchester Tenants Union, which organize across both private and social housing sectors. [16] The UK is one of the only countries in Europe that allows landlords to evict tenants without reason using Section 21 notices. [17]
Spain has experienced rapid growth in tenant organizing in recent years, [18] with unions emerging across the country [19] as housing cost burdens have risen. [20]
Under pressure from tenant unions, the Catalan parliament passed rent control legislation in 2020, though the Spanish Constitutional Tribunal struck it down.
Rent contracts are negotiated between landlord and tenant organizations. Tenants who cannot afford negotiated rents receive housing allowances. [21] Tenants are represented in court by consumer associations. [22] Mediation is a first step in addressing substandard housing before the association brings legal action. [23] Tenant associations debated with other stakeholders in the National Housing Council regarding data sharing on energy and housing benefits paid to the private sector. [24]
The Swedish Tenants' Association has 528,000 members. The rent-setting system is a social democratic model of sector-based union negotiation. [25] The Rent Control Act of 1942 started Swedish rental corporatism. The legislation remained until 1978 with traces lasting long afterwards. [26]
Tenancy laws in Canada vary widely by province. [27]
Prince Edward Island (PEI) was the site of the first documented Canadian rent strike in 1864, where the Tenant League of Prince Edward Island "committed to withhold the further liquidation of rent and arrears of rents...and to resist the distraint, coercion, ejection, seizure, and sale for rent and arrears of rent" unless they were given the opportunity to buy the land for themselves at a fair price. [28] The landlords were largely wealthy and powerful nobility in the UK who had been gifted the land by the Crown, and had never set foot on PEI. [28] By the time the government sent in troops to enforce the law, the league membership was estimated to total more than 11,000 members. [29] The league crumbled soon after, however in 1878 PEI passed legislation dispossessing absentee landlords. [30]
British Columbia had a tenants' movement made up of several organized buildings in Vancouver, and then a province-wide tenants union, between 1968-1975 that sought to secure collective bargaining rights for tenants. [31] In 1973, the Law Reform Commission of B.C. declined to recommend that the provincial government extend collective bargaining rights to tenants. [31] [32]
From the 1960s-80s, tenants at the Habitations Jeanne-Mance public housing complex in Montreal had active tenants' committees that organized against evictions, for fairer treatment from management, and for increased tenants' rights city-wide. [33]
Today, the international community union, ACORN, has chapters across the country whose work includes tenant organizing and advocacy. [34] However, the tenant organizing landscape across Canada is mostly made up of many small independent organizations.
The Vancouver Tenants Union was founded in 2017 to fight for the rights of renters and the preservation of affordable housing. [35]
Toronto has seen multiple successful rent strikes in recent years, including one in 2017 led by Parkdale Organize, a group based in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood, of over 300 tenants across 12 buildings for three months. [36] [37] A documentary about the rent strike was released online a few months later. The York South-Weston Tenants Union has also led two successful rent strikes in Toronto. [38] [39]
The Montreal Autonomous Tenants Union was founded in 2021 to use direct action to pressure landlords to keep rents low, make repairs, and stop bad faith evictions. [40] In 2022, the union successfully negotiated building repairs and rent decreases via collective action for three buildings. [41] In 2023, the union was sued for $380,000 by the Cucurull family, owners of the Gestion Immopolis real estate company, following a protest action at the company's property management office where the family and the union both accused members from the other side of violence. [42]
Tenant unions have existed in the United states for over a century. [6] The Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act of 1972 was the earliest legal acknowledgment of them, stating that landlords may not retaliate against tenants for having "organized or become a member of a tenant’s union or similar organization". [6] Section 8 housing in the US require that tenant organizations represent all tenants, regularly meet, and operate democratically and independently of the landlord under federal law. [6]
In the United States, tenant unions in the state of New York have pushed for the passage of just-cause eviction laws following the end of COVID-19 eviction moratoriums. Just-cause could include non-payment, lease violations, nuisance cases, or if a landlord wants to move into the property. [43]
Tenants unions in the US have also helped halt evictions and push for tenant bills of rights and right to counsel in Kansas City, Missouri; Tempe, Arizona; St. Petersburg, Florida; and other cities. [44] [45] [46]
United States of America federal law prohibits housing discrimination based on race, gender, religion and other protected identity categories, but it doesn't explicitly protect tenants' right to organize collectively. [47]
In Australia tenants laws are handled at a state level. Rights of tenants can greatly vary between different states. [48] There is no laws in regards to tenants union or collectively bargained leases. Although the ACCC has allowed for commercial Tenants to collectively bargin. [49]
There are multiple tenants union in Australia, with them usually being state specific. State specific tenants unions exist in New South Wales [50] ,Victoria [51] ,Queensland [52] [53] and Tasmania. [54] The Renters and Housing Union is the only non-state based Tenants Union, with branches in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia.
Tenant organizing in Latin America often intersects with broader urban social movements addressing informality, [55] displacement, and housing rights. [56] Countries with significant informal housing sectors have developed distinct approaches to tenant advocacy that address both formal rental markets and informal settlement rights. [57]
The International Union of Tenants has some unions as members, such as Living Rent and the Tenants' Union of Catalonia, in addition to non-union tenant advocacy organisations. [58]
In North America, the Autonomous Tenant Union Network was founded in 2018 and has held online and in-person conventions in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. [59]
The Tenant Union Federation has existed as a federation of five tenants unions across the United States since 2024. [60]
This is a list of federations of or containing independent tenant unions:
This following is a list of active tenant unions:
List of active tenant associations:
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