2025-06 Tenant Union Campaign Update

Tenant Union
1

@SeanHun and I met to discuss how we should change our tactics after the first workshop.

Should we be knocking on doors and talking to tenants?

We tried just dropping off flyers and not talking to people. Out of the people that we had extended conversation with, 2/4 people ended up coming. And the two that did come, seemed like they were already taking a lot of initiative on their own, so we can’t expect everyone to be like them.

But having conversations and having a better feel about the situation from tenants would give us a better idea of if a building was worth investing time in.

So at each “building,” we should try to talk to 2-3 people, depending on the number of total units to gauge how likely the building is to want to start a tenant association. We should still record the issues that we run across and maybe rank each building (1-5) so we can keep track. We should also rank each tenant on how likely they are to organize.

Ranking Buildings

5 - Very Low Organizing Potential

  • Supportive landlord that is quick to fix issues
  • no obvious physical damage or issues on the outside
  • Fair rent with minimal or below-market increases
  • Positive online reviews
  • Low tenant turnover; most residents are satisfied with their living conditions
  • Management addresses concerns before they escalate

1 - Very High Organizing Potential

  • Negligent/abusive landlord where tenants are already documenting harassment and violations
  • Illegal eviction attempts
  • Severe safety and health code violations
  • Charging them for repairs or using fines to punish tenants
  • Tenants already talking to each other about issues
  • Shared grievances and likely chance for collective action

Ranking Tenants

  • 5 - openly hostile to the idea of a tenant union
  • 4 - hostile to wanting to work with neighbors
  • 3 - neutral
  • 2 - supportive, but does not seem like they would talk to neighbors
  • 1 - supportive, would bring others into the tenant association

We also discussed using https://www.solidarity.tech/ to manage the data as well as email, call, and texting communication with tenants and other people on our contact list.

2

This is a summary of the discussion we had at the previous Tenant union Workshop:

The new strategy of speaking with 2-3 people per building and expanding to the entire building if tenants are having issues with LL/PM have been successful in getting us more leads.

However, now that we are collecting tenant information at their doors and we are encouraging them to speak with their neighbors while we are there, they don’t necessarily need to come to the workshops.

We should continue holding them, on the same Saturday every month, and ideally running bilingual meetings (with childcare some day). We will have to start advertising them in other ways (I have heard posting flyers around town does work well, as hard it is to believe). And there is a chance that a tenant we canvas might not want to speak with us at their door, but they may come to a meeting in the future.

With the Focus Campaign up for renewal in September, everyone thought it would be good to see how things are looking then. If we wish to continue with Tenant Union work, then we can set a more regular schedule for these meetings.

In the meantime, we have a decent workflow for the Solidarity.Tech app when it comes to canvassing tenants. We still need an improved workflow for getting information into the About the Tenant Associations category subcategory and a thread made for TAs with high potential.

We are going to start doing a better job of tracking which buildings we are canvassing so we can skip buildings with low organizing potential and make sure we speak to enough people at the buildings with potential.

We started the About the Tenant Associations category subcategory to start tracking and helping tenants. The entire subcategory is locked and only visible to WCU Members. The plan is to work on complaints/issues tenants are facing in one building/apartment complex in a single location.