Sofia D. | Red Phoenix correspondent | Minnesota–

Jan. 30 – multiple tenant unions and tenant organizers in the Twin Cities announced on Friday the launch of the Twin Cities Tenants Union, uniting the efforts of Inquilinxs Unidxs por Justicia, South Minneapolis Tenant’s Union, The Housing Justice Organizing Committee of the East Side Freedom Library, and several other local tenant associations, with more unions and associations sure to join. This collaboration was brought about with the help of the Kansas City Tenants Union, and the Autonomous Tenants Union Network.

At the launch of the Twin Cities Tenants Union, the participating organizations announced an Eviction Moratorium campaign. Rent was due on Monday, Feb. 2, and many working families, especially immigrant families, are unable to pay. The ongoing fascist occupation of the Twin Cities by ICE has prevented them from going to and from work safely. 

An eviction moratorium is an essential measure to protect immigrant workers from fascist violence, not to mention the cold. At this time, Walz’s office has not responded to the demand, despite the precedence of an eviction moratorium during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The Twin Cities Tenants Union is now preparing for a city-wide meeting on Feb. 14, at 3:30 CST. The aim will be to begin formalizing the structure of the TCTU and coordinate between the various campaigns, unions, and associations which are taking part in building the union. Tenants can sign up for the event in English, Spanish, and Somali, at this Linktree.

The TCTU also aims to supplement the rapid-response networks which have proliferated under the ICE occupation. “We do not know how long this occupation will last, and as long as it does, me and my neighbors here are committed to taking care of each other,” stated a representative from the Housing Justice Committee. Many speakers at the event highlighted that for many immigrant families sheltering in place, a tenant union can act as an immediate layer of protection, mobilizing support, supplies, escorts for school-aged children, and more. This sort of localized organizing and regular interaction between tenants of different backgrounds breaks down prejudices within the working class, and fosters class consciousness. Interaction between different nationalities additionally fosters a wider global awareness, critical for the working class movement in the US as the Trump administration increases its fascist aggression worldwide. As the ICE occupation continues, tenant unions will be a powerful tool in the hands of the working class to protect immigrants and national and racial minorities.

Tenant Unions in general must serve a very important role to advance the working class movement. In decades prior (roughly pre-World War II and “New Deal”), workers in the U.S. were concentrated near the factories in which they worked, and were therefore able to organize with each other more easily. 

Following the New Deal, educated and intellectual workers (mainly white) were scattered to the suburbs, thereby making  the American working class more stratified and divided. But, as capitalism developed, education has become perfected, cheapening the labor of intellectual workers. Because of this, the social divide between mental and manual laborers has begun to shrink, even as capitalist profits remain sky-high. 

Adding to this, the perfection of monopoly in the housing market, resulting the 2008 housing bubble and subsequent crash made the “homeowning” policy of the New Deal impossible to maintain: the capitalist class, rather than pursuing the long term political advantages afforded by “stabilization” and racialized homeowning, instead destroyed their carefully constructed pseudo-segregation in search of cheap profits. A very noticeable effect of this has been the return, en masse, of previously homeowning workers to renting. Minneapolis itself is more than 50% renters. This too narrows the social divide between (traditionally racialized) mental and manual laborers, providing a catalyst for breaking down racial and ethnic divisions in the working class.

From the organizing perspective, however, apartments have become organizing sites as viable as factories used to be. Workers in the US (and worldwide) have been moved to more mobile and generalized industries, especially with the digital revolution. This shift is best illustrated by the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, which in its first few years saw a major shift to “working from home.” This was possible not only because of video calling apps like Zoom, but more importantly because of the higher concentration of technology in the American economy.

As if to accelerate the tenant’s movement, several bourgeois policies and real-estate strategies have contributed to a massive rise in rent, poor maintenance of buildings, and gentrification. Many of these strategies revolve around “speculative buying,” where firms buy buildings not in the hopes of turning a profit from renters, but in homes of the value of the surrounding land increasing, or in hopes of refinancing the building’s mortgage, all to turn a profit when the building is sold to another firm later. This explains the increasing strength and momentum for the tenant union movement, which has seen massive gains in the U.S. since the 2000s. 

The most important feature for the rising tenant union movement is to maintain its independent working-class character. 

Despite the Democratic party’s messaging, it is not a party of the working-class, but rather one which mainly manages the collective interests of U.S. and international capitalist-imperialism, including the capitalist firms which own our apartments. It is therefore important not to confuse the interests of the Democratic Party and the working class at large. The Democratic Party is not a working-class or anti-fascist party, but a party that serves the capitalist class by posturing as defenders of the workers, while in reality working to maximize the capitalist’s profit. The tenant union movement should be careful to not attach itself to the Democratic Party, and not teach itself to rely on the “goodwill” of Democratic politicians such as Walz, but rather to carry out a policy of class struggle, serving the working class, and fighting for its political sovereignty.

The Twin Cities Tenants Union is an energetic step forward for the working-class movement in the Twin Cities, and in the U.S., and the APL and its Ernst Thälmann Division send their heartfelt congratulations to the organizers and workers who have brought this union to fruition. 

Categories: Housing, U.S. News