Chapter 10: Getting Organized
When We Fight, We Win!
“When we fight, we win!” has been the rallying cry for tenants in Massachusetts for decades.1 What does it mean? It means tenants coming together to organize and realize their collective power. Tenants in Massachusetts have the right to organize, form a tenants’ union, withhold rent and demand better conditions, defend against harassment, eviction and foreclosures. But, for these rights to become a reality, you need to join forces with fellow tenants. You need to learn about what other tenant unions have done. You need to know where, when and how to exercise your rights and your power.
Challenging a landlord, however, can feel frightening. As a tenant, you may be afraid that your landlord will label you a troublemaker. Or you may be afraid of retaliation or losing your home. The best way to protect yourself is to find out your rights, figure out your options, and fight the battle with others, not alone. There is more power in numbers and organizing changes the power dynamic.
As a group, tenants have the power to define what is happening as a moral issue about a group of people's homes, not just a legal issue about an owner's investment. For example, while the law does not prevent a landlord in the private unsubsidized housing market from doubling rents, organized tenants have taken a stand against excessive rent increases and won fair rent increase schedules.
The key is not to let a landlord discourage you from trying to organize to improve your housing. If you let landlord pressure keep you from moving forward, you are only helping them instead of yourself.
The purpose of this chapter is to pass on the lessons that organizers and tenants have learned about why, when, where and how to organize. Who should read this chapter? Tenants, organizers, and legal advocates. By working collectively, and not alone and in isolation, tenants can shift the balance of power from the entities or people that own, manage or profit from housing back to the people who live in the housing.
Some examples of what tenant groups have accomplished include:
An investor-landlord purchased dozens of buildings in a predominantly working-class Latino Boston neighborhood. The investor then brought eviction actions against the existing tenants. A group of tenants from multiple buildings owned by this one investor began attending weekly community meetings where they learned about their rights, obtained legal counsel, and formed a tenants’ association/tenant union. The tenants collectively demanded that the investor dismiss all pending eviction actions against them and reinstate their tenancies. The tenants also made their demand public, bringing their story to the media and to public officials. Shortly after the tenants made their demand, the investor agreed to dismiss the pending eviction actions and to allow the tenants to remain in their homes as tenants.
An investor bought a building that was being operated as an illegal rooming house. The building was a 6 unit building with over 20 people living in it. The building was in terrible condition. When the investor bought it, they did not fix the bad conditions but instead tried to give people a small amount of cash to leave. Some tenants not understanding their rights took the money and left. Some tenants understanding their right to fight the evictions decided to form a tenant union. The tenant union demanded that the new investor fix the bad conditions in the building. The investor refused and tried to persist with the evictions. The investor lost those evictions due to the bad conditions in the building and was forced to sit down at the bargaining table with the tenant union. As a result of these negotiations, the investor walked away from the building and sold it to a community land trust that was set up to protect affordable housing and take it out of the speculative market. The land trust agreed to fix all the bad conditions and allow the tenants to stay paying affordable rents.2 One of the leaders of this tenant union was interviewed after the trial and said:
“We are powerful. We needed to know our rights, and we needed to exercise our rights. With support from [organizers] and the … lawyers … we realized we are a lion.”3
Go to the table of contents, or download this chapter as a PDF below.
For a summary of this chapter, see our overview article and 2-page handout.
See When We Fight We Win: Twenty-First Center Social Movements and the Activists that are Transforming the World by Greg Jobin Leeds & Agitarte at 115–17, 124–25 (2016).
For more in depth description of this fight, see When We Fight, We Win: Eviction Defense as Subversive Lawyering by Eloise Lawrence, 90 Fordham L. Rev. 2125, 2145-2149 (2022)
Jury Says That Tenants in Uphams Corner Case Can Stay in Their Homes, by Katie Trojano, Dorchester Rep., Nov. 14, 2019, at 1, 15.