Tenants union

{{About|the kind of tenants organisation||Tenants' Union (disambiguation){{!}}Tenants' Union}}

{{short description|Collectively organized housing tenants group}}

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.{{Cite web |title=What is a Tenants Union? |url=https://www.tenantstogether.org/sites/tenantstogether.org/files/TT%20Tenant%20Unions.pdf |access-date=August 7, 2023 |website=Tenants Together}}{{Cite web|title=Help for Tenants Facing Eviction|url=https://homeguides.sfgate.com/tenants-facing-eviction-8042.html|access-date=2022-02-11|website=Home Guides {{!}} SF Gate|language=en}} Groups may also lobby local officials to change housing policies or address homelessness.

Definitions

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.{{Cite journal |last=Indritz |first=Tova |date=1971-01-01 |title=The Tenants' Rights Movement |url=https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmlr/vol1/iss1/2/ |journal=New Mexico Law Review |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=1 |issn=0028-6214}}{{Cite journal |last1=Hales |first1=H. Edward |last2=Livingston |first2=Charles |date=2022-09-06 |title=Tenant Unions: Their Law and Operation in the State and Nation |url=https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/flr/vol23/iss1/5/ |journal=Florida Law Review |volume=23 |issue=1 |pages=79 |issn=1045-4241}}{{Cite journal |last1=Davis |first1=Gordon J. |last2=Schwartz |first2=Michael W. |date=1966–1967 |title=Tenant Unions: An Experiment in Private Law-Making |url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/hcrcl2&div=21&id=&page= |journal=Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review |volume=2 |pages=237}}

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.{{Cite journal |last=Baltz |first=Greg |title=Tenant Union Law |url=https://yalelawandpolicy.org/tenant-union-law |journal=Yale Law & Policy Review |volume=43 |issue=1}}

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. Tenant unions have also joined coalitions with other tenant unions at the city, state, and country level to campaign for more protections. 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.

Activities and tactics

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.

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.

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.

Australia

In Australia tenants laws are handled at a state level. Rights of tenants can greatly vary between different states.{{Cite web |last=Make Renting Fair WA |date=2023-10-01 |title=National comparison of tenancy laws in Australia |url=https://makerentingfairwa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/National-comparison-of-tenancy-laws-in-Australia-Octrober-2023.pdf |url-status=live |access-date=2025-06-13 |website=Make Renting Fair WA}} There is no laws in regards to tenants union or collectively bargained leases. Although the ACCC has allowed for commercial Tenants to collectively bargin.{{Cite web |last=Commission |first=Australian Competition and Consumer |date=2025-01-31 |title=ACCC does not object to collective bargaining by tenants of the Toowoomba City Aerodrome |url=https://www.accc.gov.au/about-us/news/media-updates/accc-does-not-object-to-collective-bargaining-by-tenants-of-the-toowoomba-city-aerodrome |access-date=2025-06-13 |website=www.accc.gov.au |language=en}}

There are multiple tenants union in Australia, with them usually being state specific. State specific tenants unions exist in New South Wales{{Cite web |title=About our organisation Tenants' Union |url=https://www.tenants.org.au/tu/about-our-work |access-date=2025-06-13 |website=New South Wales Tenants Union. |language=en}},Victoria{{Cite web |title=About us |url=https://tenantsvic.org.au/about-us/ |access-date=2025-06-13 |website=Tenants Victoria |language=en-AU}},Queensland{{Cite web |last=Pasi |date=2009-06-25 |title=About TQ |url=https://tenantsqld.org.au/about-tuq/ |access-date=2025-06-13 |website=Tenants Queensland |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=About - SEQUR |url=https://sequr-homes.github.io/about/ |access-date=2025-06-13 |website=South East Queensland Union of Renters |language=en}} and Tasmania.{{Cite web |date=2025 |title=about us |access-date=2025-06-13 |website=Tenants' Union of Tasmania |language=en-US}} The Renters and Housing Union is the only non-state based Tenants Union, with branches in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia.

Canada

Tenancy laws in Canada vary widely by province.{{Cite web |last=Government of Canada |first=Innovation |date=2025-01-27 |title=Landlord and tenant relations |url=https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/office-consumer-affairs/en/buying-and-leasing-big-ticket-items/landlord-and-tenant-relations |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=ised-isde.canada.ca}}

The international community union, ACORN, has chapters across the country whose work include tenant organizing and advocacy.{{Cite web |date=2013-01-18 |title=About ACORN Canada - ACORN Canada |url=https://acorncanada.org/aboutacorncanada/,%20https://acorncanada.org/about/ |access-date=2025-05-26 |language=en-US}}

= British Columbia =

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.{{Cite journal |last=Jon |first=Paul S |date=2022-07-08 |title=Tenant Organizing and the Campaign for Collective Bargaining Rights in British Columbia, 1968–75 |url=https://www.canlii.org/en/commentary/doc/2020CanLIIDocs3940#!fragment/zoupio-_Toc3Page2/BQCwhgziBcwMYgK4DsDWszIQewE4BUBTADwBdoAvbRABwEtsBaAfX2zgGYAFMAc0IBMASgA0ybKUIQAiokK4AntADkykREJhcCWfKWr1m7SADKeUgCElAJQCiAGVsA1AIIA5AMK2RpMACNoUnYhISA |journal=BC Studies |issue=206 |pages=31-58 |via=CANLII}} In 1973, the Law Reform Commission of B.C. declined to recommend that the provincial government extend collective bargaining rights to tenants.{{Cite web |date=2021-12-08 |title=B.C. tenants must have the right to collectively bargain |url=https://www.straight.com/news/bc-tenants-must-have-right-to-collectively-bargain# |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=The Georgia Straight |language=en}}

The Vancouver Tenants Union was founded in 2017 to fight for the rights of renters and the preservation of affordable housing.{{Cite web |title=About |url=https://www.vancouvertenantsunion.ca/about |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=Vancouver Tenants Union}}

= Prince Edward Island =

Prince Edward Island (PEI) was the site of the first documented Canadian rent strike in 1864, where the Tenant Union 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.{{Cite book |last=Robertson |first=Ian Ross |title=The Tenant League of Prince Edward Island: 1864 - 1867 ; leasehold tenure in the New World |date=1996 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |isbn=978-0-8020-0769-8 |location=Toronto |pages=13}} 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. By the time the government sent in troops to enforce the law, the union membership was estimated to total more than 11,000 members.{{Cite book |last=Robertson |first=Ian Ross |title=Canadian state trials |date=2010 |publisher=Published for the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History by [the] University of Toronto Press |isbn=978-1-4426-4015-3 |editor-last=Greenwood |editor-first=Frank Murray |series=Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History (Series) |location=Toronto Buffalo |pages=123 |chapter=The Tenant League and the Law, 1864–7 |editor-last2=Wright |editor-first2=Barry |editor-last3=Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History}} The union crumbled soon after, however in 1878 PEI passed legislation dispossessing absentee landlords.{{Cite book |last=Tranjan |first=Ricardo |title=The tenant class |date=2023 |publisher=Between the Lines |isbn=978-1-77113-622-8 |location=Toronto, Ontario |pages=70}}

France

Rent contracts are negotiated between landlord and tenant organizations. Tenants who cannot afford negotiated rents receive housing allowances.{{Cite book |last=Gilderbloom |first=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XsQV09Esg_8C&dq=France+rent+control+negotiation+tenant+association&pg=PA161 |title=Rethinking Rental Housing |date=2012-06-20 |publisher=Temple University Press |isbn=978-1-4399-0671-2 |language=en}} Tenants are represented in court by consumer associations.{{Cite book |last=Ball |first=Jane |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yIWoAgAAQBAJ&dq=France+CNL+right+to+housing&pg=PT100 |title=Housing Disadvantaged People?: Insiders and Outsiders in French Social Housing |date=2012-06-25 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-63241-9 |language=en}} Mediation is a first step in addressing substandard housing before the association brings legal action.{{Cite book |last1=Creutzfeldt |first1=Naomi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vMY4EAAAQBAJ&dq=Tenant+mediation+France&pg=PA246 |title=Access to Justice for Vulnerable and Energy-Poor Consumers: Just Energy? |last2=Gill |first2=Chris |last3=Cornelis |first3=Marine |last4=McPherson |first4=Rachel |date=2021-07-01 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-5099-3944-2 |language=en}} Tenant associations debated with other stakeholders in the National Housing Council regarding data sharing on energy and housing benefits paid to the private sector.{{Cite news |date=2021-03-22 |title=Les associations d'usagers s'inquiètent du partage massif de données concernant les bénéficiaires d'aides au logement |url=https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2021/03/22/les-associations-d-usagers-s-inquietent-du-partage-massif-de-donnees-concernant-les-beneficiaires-d-aides-au-logement_6074019_3224.html |access-date=2024-11-30 |language=fr}}

United States

Tenant unions have existed in the United states for over a century. 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". 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.

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.{{Cite web |title=New York's eviction moratorium expires Saturday, concerns remain among landlords, tenants |url=https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/new-yorks-eviction-moratorium-expires-saturday-concerns-remain-among-landlords-tenants/ar-AASMYys |access-date=2022-02-11 |website=MSN |language=en-US}}

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.{{Cite web |title=City News {{!}} KCMO.gov - City of Kansas City, MO |url=https://www.kcmo.gov/Home/Components/News/News/1882/16 |access-date=2023-07-03 |website=www.kcmo.gov |language=en}}AZ Central [http://www.azcentral.com/community/chandler/articles/2008/11/14/20081114cr-tenants1115.html].{{Cite web |title=Amid outcry, St. Petersburg mayoral candidate Robert Blackmon halts evictions |url=https://www.tampabay.com/news/st-petersburg/2021/07/27/amid-outcry-st-petersburg-mayoral-candidate-blackmon-halts-evictions/ |access-date=2023-08-07 |website=Tampa Bay Times |language=en}}

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.{{Cite web |title=Having trouble with your landlord? Here's how to organize a tenant union in Kansas City |url=https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/having-trouble-with-your-landlord-heres-how-to-organize-a-tenant-union-in-kansas-city/ar-AATkc8D |access-date=2022-02-11 |website=MSN |language=en-US}}File:Tenant_right_laws_by_US_States,_2023.png

= Legal protection =

In a 2018 survey of state law, two states and D.C. were found to have substantial protections for tenant unions and tenant union organizing (Category 1 states listed below); twenty-nine other states protected tenant union organizing (Category 2 states listed below); and nineteen states had no laws protecting tenant associations or tenant association organizing (Category 3 states below).{{Cite journal |last=Bangs |first=Christopher |date=Fall 2018 |title=A Union for All: Collective Associations Outside the Workplace |url=https://www.law.georgetown.edu/poverty-journal/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2019/02/26-1-A-Union-for-All.pdf |journal=Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy |volume=XXVI |issue=1 |pages=59–61}}

class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible"

|+Legal Protections for Tenant Union Organizing in the United States by State

!State

!Category

!Protections{{Cite journal |last=Bangs |first=Christopher |date=Fall 2018 |title=A Union for All: Collective Associations Outside the Workplace |url=https://www.law.georgetown.edu/poverty-journal/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2019/02/26-1-A-Union-for-All.pdf |journal=Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy |volume=XXVI |issue=1 |pages=125–149}}

Alabama

|Uniform and Residential Landlord Tenant Act prohibits retaliation for organizing or being involved with a tenants union.

Alaska

|Uniform and Residential Landlord Tenant Act prohibits retaliation for organizing or being involved with a tenants union.

Arizona

|Uniform and Residential Landlord Tenant Act prohibits retaliation for organizing or being involved with a tenants union.

Tenants at mobile home and residential vehicle parks have additional rights.

Arkansas

|No laws found.

California

|Substantial protections for tenant union organizing. In some circumstances, tenant associations have substantive rights, such as an opportunity to purchase some regulated housing developments or the right to raise some health and safety claims.

Colorado

|Landlords may not retaliate against tenants for making complaints to the landlord or to governmental entities.

Connecticut

|Landlords may not retaliate against tenants for organizing or being involved with a tenants union. Tenant unions often have an opportunity to purchase buildings during a conversion to a condominium. Tenant associations have additional rights in state housing projects and in mobile home parks.

Delaware

|Landlords may not retaliate against tenants who organized or are officers in a tenants’ organization.

Tenant associations in manufactured home communities have additional rights.

District of Columbia

|Tenants have the right to organize, to meet and confer through representatives of their own choosing with the owner, and to engage in concerted activities for mutual aid and protections. Tenant organizers often have the right to canvass in multifamily housing accommodations. Owners may not interfere with tenants' self-organizational activities.

Under the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, tenants associations often have an opportunity to purchase rental buildings when the owner wishes to sell them.

Florida

|Landlords may not retaliate against tenants for organizing, encouraging or participating in a tenant organization.

Tenants of mobile home parks have additional rights.

Georgia

|No laws found.

Idaho

|No general tenant protection found. Tenants of floating home marinas have the right to form a tenant association. Tenants of mobile and manufactured home parks have additional rights.

Illinois

|No general tenant protection found. Tenants in assisted housing developments receiving governmental funding have additional rights.

Indiana

|No general tenant protection found.

Iowa

|Landlords may not retaliate against tenants for organizing or becoming a member of a tenants union.

Kansas

|Landlords may not retaliate against tenants for organizing or becoming a member of a tenants’ union.

Louisiana

|No laws found.

Maine

|Tenants cannot be evicted if the eviction action was brought in retaliation for tenant union organizing.

Maryland

|Landlords cannot include in rental agreements any provisions permitting eviction based on tenant union organizing. In Montgomery County, landlords cannot retaliate against tenants for membership in a tenants organization.

Mobile home park tenants have additional rights.

Massachusetts

|In an eviction process, a tenant may raise a defense that the action was brought in retaliation for organizing or joining a tenants union. Any person who retaliates against a tenant for their tenant union activities is liable for damages.

Tenants of manufactured home parks and public housing developments have additional rights.

Michigan

|Tenants may not be evicted action if the eviction was based on retaliation against a tenant for tenant union activities.

Tenants of public and affordable housing developments have additional rights.

Minnesota

|Housing-related neighborhood organizations may bring legal actions for violations of landlord-tenant law on behalf of tenants. They may also request an inspection of facilities. Landlords may not retaliate against tenants for filing complaints.

Tenants in manufactured home parks have additional rights.

Mississippi

|No laws found.

Missouri

|No laws found.

Montana

|Landlord may not retaliate against tenants for organizing or being a member of tenant unions.

Tenants of mobile home parks have additional rights.

Nebraska

|Landlord may not retaliate against tenants for organizing or being a member of tenant unions.

Nevada

|Landlord may not retaliate against tenants for organizing or being a member of tenant unions.

New Hampshire

|In eviction proceedings, tenants may raise a defense that the eviction is retaliation for tenant union activity.

Tenants of mobile and manufactured home parks have additional rights.

New Jersey

|Landlords may not evict tenants for their membership or involvement in any lawful organization. Landlords may not evict tenants for refusing to comply with terms of tenancy which the landlord altered to retaliate for tenant organization activity.

New Mexico

|Landlord may not retaliate against tenants for organizing or being a member of tenant unions.

New York

|Landlords may not interfere with the right of tenants to form, join or participate in tenant organization, and may not punish, harass, or retaliate against tenants for exercising these rights. Tenant unions have the right to meet on the premises in any common use area without having to pay a fee.

Limited-profit housing companies must adopt regulations recognizing tenant associations. Tenants in those properties have additional rights.

Tenant associations providing services have some additional rights.

North Carolina

|No laws found.

North Dakota

|No laws found.

Ohio

|Landlord may not retaliate against tenants for organizing with each other for the purpose of dealing collectively with the landlord.

Low-income housing programs may provide grants to tenant associations.

Oregon

|Landlord may not retaliate against tenants for organizing or being a member of tenant unions.

Tenants in manufactured home and floating home parks have additional rights.

Pennsylvania

|Landlords may not terminate or decline to renew a lease due to a tenant union organizing or membership.

Puerto Rico

|No laws found.

Rhode Island

|Landlord may not retaliate against tenants for organizing or being a member of tenant unions.

Tenants in mobile home parks and federally insured or assisted housing have some additional rights.

South Carolina

|No laws found.

South Dakota

|Landlord may not retaliate against tenants for organizing or being a member of tenant unions.

Tennessee

|No laws found.

Texas

|Landlord may not retaliate against tenants for organizing or being a member of tenant unions.

Tenant organizations in low-income housing have additional rights.

Utah

|No general tenant protections found. Residents of mobile home parks have additional rights.

Vermont

|Landlord may not retaliate against tenants for organizing or being a member of tenant unions.

Virginia

|Landlord may not retaliate against tenants for organizing or being a member of tenant unions.

Washington

|No laws found.

West Virginia

|No general tenant protections found. Tenants in house trailers, mobile homes, manufactured homes, and modular homes are protected from eviction for tenant union organizing or membership.

Wisconsin

|Landlord may not retaliate against tenants for organizing or being a member of tenant unions.

Wyoming

|No laws found.

Oklahoma

|No laws found.

Kentucky

|Landlords may not retaliate against tenants for organizing or becoming a member of a tenants’ union.

Provides some services to tenants living in low incoming housing, including advisory services for creating tenant organizations to “which will assume a meaningful and responsible role in the planning and carrying out of housing affairs.”

Hawaii

|Tenant organizations have the right to sue in the organization’s name to abate nuisance.

Resident advisory boards are established for public housing projects.

Federations of tenants' unions

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.{{Cite web |title=Members |url=https://www.iut.nu/members/ |access-date=2025-05-05 |website=IUT |language=en-GB}}

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.{{Cite web |title=Tenants Unions |url=https://atun-rsia.org/tenant-unions |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=Autonomous Tenants Union Network |language=en-US}}

The Tenant Union Federation has existed as a federation of five tenants unions across the United States since 2024.{{Cite magazine |last=Burns |first=Rebecca |author-link=Rebecca Burns (journalist) |date=10 August 2024 |title=Tenants’ Unions Across the US Now Have a National Federation |url=https://jacobin.com/2024/08/national-tenants-union-landlords-harris/ |access-date=1 November 2024 |website=jacobin.com |language=en-US}}

Tenants union

Definitions

Activities and tactics

Australia

Canada

= British Columbia =

= Prince Edward Island =

France

United States

= Legal protection =

Federations of tenants' unions

See also

References

Further reading