Overview
In this short article, we will be exploring
• The relationship between anarcho-syndicalism and tenants’ union organizing
• The necessity of a focus on one-on-one relationships if anarcho-syndicalist practices are to remain relevant
• The successes and activities of the Montreal Autonomous Tenants’ Union involving many active anarchists
• Some suggestions for creating a lasting tenant union with your neighbours!
Landlords Keep Your Distance!
Hundreds of tenants have been on rent strike for months in Ontario. This number increased today, September 30th, with over a hundred tenants from two North York buildings joining the struggle. In the past six years, Toronto has built up a growing tradition of rent strikes, with the Parkdale victory of 2017 (the defeat of a rent increase and a rent reduction program), the success of a subsequent 2018 strike, and tens of thousands of tenants on strike during COVID-19.
In Montreal, the tradition is more modest. The Montreal Autonomous Tenants’ Union (SLAM) and Au Combat Chez Soi most closely replicate the example of unions in Toronto and the United States. Through the model of direct action, neighbour and community organizing, solidarity, and unionization drives, SLAM has helped tenants and members win thousands of dollars in repairs, direct compensation, and outstanding rent being forgiven. Evictions have been stopped or considerably delayed.
The use of the concept “union” may puzzle some traditional syndicalists who focus on the workplace. However, like students, tenants have opportunities to create the same relationships built on solidarity, regular meetings, and proximity that develop in a workplace. Tenants, like workers, have every interest in fighting for frequent changes to the conditions under which they live, and in building a place for themselves in a new world where tenants manage their housing collectively (as 12,000 Montreal households already do through their housing co-ops) without landlords and their vicious profit-motive.
The “Autonomous” Tenants’ Union
Autonomy is crucial to the ongoing effectiveness of tenants’ unions. Militants should recognize a golden opportunity in our tenant movement. Unionized workplaces, which are very common in Quebec, have very rigid union structures that divide the union between paid staff and the actual workers. The union is a service organization meant to negotiate with employers, and police more militant union organizers. To quote the Rand decision, which continues to define Canadian labour relations, the model of Canadian unions is built on the goal of an “enlightened leadership” which acts in a “civilized manner” to stop its membership from any “flouting of civil order” and preserve the union’s “essential function in an economy of private enterprise.”
Tenants, on the other hand, are unorganized. The tenants’ unions we can create for ourselves can give us and our neighbours much more power and self-determination. They can be much more combative. The Montreal Autonomous Tenants’ Union, for instance, organizes through biweekly meetings open to the entirety of its membership, without paid activists or organizers. Tenants’ unionizing in their building get help from fellow tenants in the larger Montreal union with experience in building organizing. However, each “tenant council” (the phrase for tenants’ organized together in their building or street) is autonomous within the union. The union only has influence insofar as it can convince tenant councils of best practices through presentations, film screenings, leaflets and one-on-ones.
In this way, anarcho-syndicalists define fighting back and building community. Direct action, solidarity, and non-hierarchy inform the practices and goals of tenant unionism or organizing. We do not want clearly defined authority-figures, such as paid activists of non-profits or political parties. We are opposed to tactics which use court action, or lobbying the government. And we take on the goal of revolutionary syndicalism, the complete overhaul of landlords– not just the reforms of rent controls, anti-eviction legislation, or more social housing.
Hello Neighbour!
Most people probably want to hear about the direct actions that tenants can take. These actions include banner drops, rent strikes, phone blasts, picket lines, and even blockades. Our union has spent a lot of time exploring how to carry out these more militant collective actions.
However, for the purpose of this article, we want to stress the need for a focus on building relationships with neighbours. Our involvement in SLAM has taught us that when we plan an event, it’s not our 2,000 followers on Instagram who show up. Who turns up then? Our friends and the neighbours who we’ve built close relationships with!
This is consistent with the socialization theory of social networks. Friends become more similar over time and supportive of one another’s ideas and activities. The power of friendship and personal connections goes so far as to be a key factor in religious conversion and changing fundamental viewpoints (see, for instance, the influential work of Lofland and Stark, or others such as Kox, Meeus, and Hart).
Our union approaches building unionization through the perspective of growing relationships between neighbours while focusing on militancy. The first actions someone should take when union organizing is door-knocking all the neighbours in their building or, if they live in a duplex, door-knocking other neighbours on their street. After gathering some contact information and first impressions, we suggest tenants find different times to sit down for a 30 to 40-minute one-on-one with the neighbours they suspect they will most hit it off with. After a one-on-one, a relationship has started that will guarantee that when a first tenants meeting is called (usually right after a few one-on-ones), it is planned or at least attended by a few new friends.
As anarcho-syndicalists our tendency is to think big because of the huge successes of past anarchist unions. However, we should not forget the patient and necessary work of building these connections with neighbours: people who are not already in our movement. For most of us, this is our best opportunity to spread anarchist tactics, perspectives, and, ultimately, an anarchist syndicalism.