WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.299 You know, there's a very specific, almost heavy 00:00:02.299 --> 00:00:05.259 feeling you get when you sign a lease. You're 00:00:05.259 --> 00:00:07.299 sitting there, maybe in some sterile leasing 00:00:07.299 --> 00:00:10.640 office with really bad coffee or maybe just at 00:00:10.640 --> 00:00:12.740 your own kitchen table. Right. And you're just 00:00:12.740 --> 00:00:15.880 staring at page after page of this dense legal 00:00:15.880 --> 00:00:19.620 jargon. And as you sign your initials over and 00:00:19.620 --> 00:00:21.780 over again, bottom right, bottom right, you know, 00:00:21.780 --> 00:00:25.350 the back of your mind, this document. It basically 00:00:25.350 --> 00:00:28.469 rules your life for the next 12 months. It is 00:00:28.469 --> 00:00:31.730 a binding contract. It feels absolute, almost 00:00:31.730 --> 00:00:33.810 like the law of gravity. Exactly. It's like physics. 00:00:33.990 --> 00:00:36.469 Yeah. And because it feels so absolute, we tend 00:00:36.469 --> 00:00:38.090 to think of the relationship between a landlord 00:00:38.090 --> 00:00:40.729 and a tenant as this unshakable thing. It's just 00:00:40.729 --> 00:00:43.009 a given. Yeah. It's a simple equation. You pay, 00:00:43.170 --> 00:00:46.329 you stay. You don't pay, you leave. But then 00:00:46.329 --> 00:00:49.130 you hear a term like rent strike, and it just 00:00:49.130 --> 00:00:51.810 sort of glitches that logic. It breaks the physics 00:00:51.810 --> 00:00:53.840 of it. It sounds like a contradiction in terms, 00:00:53.939 --> 00:00:56.000 doesn't it? I mean, in our culture, we associate 00:00:56.000 --> 00:00:58.460 strikes with labor. Right. We think of factories, 00:00:58.640 --> 00:01:00.539 picket lines outside a coal mine, maybe teachers 00:01:00.539 --> 00:01:03.820 walking out. A worker stops working to get better 00:01:03.820 --> 00:01:07.299 wages. They're withholding their labor. But a 00:01:07.299 --> 00:01:10.060 tenant, a tenant isn't producing anything for 00:01:10.060 --> 00:01:11.579 the landlord. They're just existing. They're 00:01:11.579 --> 00:01:13.840 living. Right. So when I see headlines about 00:01:13.840 --> 00:01:17.019 rent strikes, my first thought is usually, OK, 00:01:17.159 --> 00:01:18.879 that sounds chaotic. That just sounds like a 00:01:18.879 --> 00:01:20.379 bunch of people ran out of money and are trying 00:01:20.379 --> 00:01:23.120 to rebrand it. And that is such a common misconception. 00:01:23.319 --> 00:01:25.400 If you look at it from a distance, you know, 00:01:25.420 --> 00:01:28.340 without the context, it does look like a financial 00:01:28.340 --> 00:01:31.560 dispute, a transaction gone wrong. But if you 00:01:31.560 --> 00:01:33.159 dig into the research we've pulled for today 00:01:33.159 --> 00:01:36.099 and we have a massive stack here, truly, you 00:01:36.099 --> 00:01:39.040 realize that a rent strike is rarely just about 00:01:39.040 --> 00:01:41.939 the check. It's a high stakes, high risk leverage 00:01:41.939 --> 00:01:45.650 tactic where the home itself. It becomes the 00:01:45.650 --> 00:01:48.349 battlefield. And that is exactly what we're doing 00:01:48.349 --> 00:01:50.250 today. We're doing a deep dive into the hidden 00:01:50.250 --> 00:01:53.170 history of the rent strike, not just as a flash 00:01:53.170 --> 00:01:55.250 in the pan news story, but as this historical 00:01:55.250 --> 00:01:57.950 recurring one. We're going to look at the mechanics 00:01:57.950 --> 00:02:01.650 of how you actually fight a landlord who, frankly, 00:02:01.750 --> 00:02:03.909 holds all the legal cards. And we're going to 00:02:03.909 --> 00:02:07.269 look at the history, which is wilder than I expected. 00:02:07.269 --> 00:02:10.159 I mean, we're talking medieval peasants. 20th 00:02:10.159 --> 00:02:12.699 century shipbuilders, even modern university 00:02:12.699 --> 00:02:15.300 students. We have sources covering arrears lists 00:02:15.300 --> 00:02:19.180 from the 15th century all the way to the tin 00:02:19.180 --> 00:02:22.500 houses of California farmworkers. It's a huge 00:02:22.500 --> 00:02:24.879 sweep of history that really highlights how people 00:02:24.879 --> 00:02:27.699 fight for their own space. So if you're listening 00:02:27.699 --> 00:02:30.659 to this and you rent your home or even if you 00:02:30.659 --> 00:02:33.120 own property, this is the history of the power 00:02:33.120 --> 00:02:35.259 struggle that defines where we all sleep at night. 00:02:35.879 --> 00:02:38.379 But before we get to the medieval peasants, we 00:02:38.379 --> 00:02:40.080 need to lay down some ground rules. Some definitions. 00:02:40.419 --> 00:02:42.240 Exactly. We need to define what we're talking 00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:44.439 about because the words really matter here. They 00:02:44.439 --> 00:02:46.939 certainly do. So what is the actual difference 00:02:46.939 --> 00:02:49.860 between a strike and, say, me just being broke 00:02:49.860 --> 00:02:51.960 and missing a payment? Because to the landlord, 00:02:52.180 --> 00:02:54.539 the bank account looks the same. It's empty. 00:02:54.699 --> 00:02:57.120 The result might look the same on a balance sheet, 00:02:57.159 --> 00:03:00.139 sure. But the intent and the mechanism are completely 00:03:00.139 --> 00:03:03.020 different. If you as an individual can't pay 00:03:03.020 --> 00:03:05.240 your rent because of hardship. You lost your 00:03:05.240 --> 00:03:08.020 job. You had a medical emergency. That's a tragedy. 00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:10.259 It's a personal crisis. But it's not a strike. 00:03:10.479 --> 00:03:13.719 It is not a strike. A rent strike is a collective 00:03:13.719 --> 00:03:16.759 direct action. It's political. So it has to be 00:03:16.759 --> 00:03:18.699 a group. It can't be a solo act. It has to be 00:03:18.699 --> 00:03:21.860 a group. The power lies entirely in the collective. 00:03:22.199 --> 00:03:25.199 I mean, think about it. If one person withholds 00:03:25.199 --> 00:03:27.520 rent, they're just a non -paying tenant. Right. 00:03:27.639 --> 00:03:29.280 You get an eviction notice. You get an eviction 00:03:29.280 --> 00:03:30.960 notice. You get a sheriff at the door and you're 00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:34.199 out. But if an entire building or a whole neighborhood 00:03:34.199 --> 00:03:38.199 or a city withholds rent, well, you can't evict 00:03:38.199 --> 00:03:40.539 everyone. You break the enforcement mechanism. 00:03:40.939 --> 00:03:43.280 That is that nuclear option phrase I saw in the 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:45.379 notes. It is absolutely the nuclear option for 00:03:45.379 --> 00:03:47.060 a tenant. And we have to be really clear about 00:03:47.060 --> 00:03:50.020 the stakes. Right at the top here, this is not 00:03:50.020 --> 00:03:52.740 a game. For the landlord, obviously, a strike 00:03:52.740 --> 00:03:54.639 is a loss of revenue and a loss of leverage. 00:03:55.300 --> 00:03:59.120 But for the tenant, if you do this wrong, you 00:03:59.120 --> 00:04:01.460 aren't just making a point. You're facing eviction. 00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:04.340 Okay, that's huge. You're looking at a destroyed 00:04:04.340 --> 00:04:07.219 credit score. a blacklist that might prevent 00:04:07.219 --> 00:04:10.360 you from renting elsewhere, potential legal consequences, 00:04:10.620 --> 00:04:13.120 and, you know, literally being put out on the 00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:14.939 street. It's not something people do for fun. 00:04:15.099 --> 00:04:17.519 It's definitely not a hobby. Never. It's an act 00:04:17.519 --> 00:04:19.800 of desperation, but also strategy. It happens 00:04:19.800 --> 00:04:21.899 when the status quo just becomes unbearable. 00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:24.819 Let's get into that strategy. The how. Because 00:04:24.819 --> 00:04:27.259 I think most people assume a rent strike is just 00:04:27.259 --> 00:04:30.560 everyone shouting stop payment and, I don't know, 00:04:30.579 --> 00:04:33.350 hoping for the best. Right. Looking at the breakdown 00:04:33.350 --> 00:04:36.810 here, there are serious mechanics to resistance. 00:04:37.129 --> 00:04:38.910 It's almost like a military operation. There 00:04:38.910 --> 00:04:40.970 is, and it all revolves around that one concept. 00:04:41.610 --> 00:04:44.290 Leverage of bargaining power. Which, usually, 00:04:44.449 --> 00:04:46.930 the tenant has zero of. The lease is written 00:04:46.930 --> 00:04:49.230 by the landlord for the landlord. Individually, 00:04:49.250 --> 00:04:52.769 yes. Zero. A standard lease is designed to give 00:04:52.769 --> 00:04:55.610 the property owner all the power. But the landlord 00:04:55.610 --> 00:04:58.430 has a vulnerability. Which is? They have bills, 00:04:58.470 --> 00:05:01.920 too. They have mortgages, property taxes, insurance, 00:05:02.339 --> 00:05:06.120 maintenance costs. They rely on cash flow. Their 00:05:06.120 --> 00:05:09.279 entire business model assumes a steady, predictable 00:05:09.279 --> 00:05:12.459 stream of income. So the strike attacks the cash 00:05:12.459 --> 00:05:15.100 flow. It chokes the engine. Exactly. But you 00:05:15.100 --> 00:05:17.259 can't just stop paying and go buy a new TV with 00:05:17.259 --> 00:05:19.240 the money. That's a very quick way to lose public 00:05:19.240 --> 00:05:21.620 support and lose in court. Of course. The sources 00:05:21.620 --> 00:05:24.139 all emphasize that successful strikes almost 00:05:24.139 --> 00:05:26.930 always involve organized groups. typically tenants 00:05:26.930 --> 00:05:29.089 unions. And one of the first things they do is 00:05:29.089 --> 00:05:31.430 create a war chest. A strike fund. A strike fund. 00:05:31.509 --> 00:05:33.790 Yeah. Or crowdfunding in the modern era. Because 00:05:33.790 --> 00:05:36.509 if the landlord drags you into court, and they 00:05:36.509 --> 00:05:39.689 will, you need legal representation. You can't 00:05:39.689 --> 00:05:42.730 fight a legal battle on an empty stomach or with 00:05:42.730 --> 00:05:44.509 empty pockets. You need to show that you have 00:05:44.509 --> 00:05:46.949 the money. You're just choosing not to give it 00:05:46.949 --> 00:05:49.230 to the landlord for a specific reason. Precisely. 00:05:49.269 --> 00:05:51.490 It's a strategic withholding, not an inability 00:05:51.490 --> 00:05:53.889 to pay. Now, I want to double click on this one 00:05:53.889 --> 00:05:56.310 specific tactic mentioned in the notes because 00:05:56.310 --> 00:06:00.290 it sounded incredibly devious. The rolling rent 00:06:00.290 --> 00:06:02.449 strike. This sounds like something out of a spy 00:06:02.449 --> 00:06:05.970 novel. It's a fascinating piece of legal maneuvering. 00:06:05.970 --> 00:06:08.750 It really shows how sophisticated these movements 00:06:08.750 --> 00:06:11.470 can get. So who came up with this? This was devised 00:06:11.470 --> 00:06:14.810 by two lawyers, Lester Evans and Richard Livingston. 00:06:15.230 --> 00:06:17.529 They were affiliated with the Met Council on 00:06:17.529 --> 00:06:19.930 Housing in New York, and they were looking at 00:06:19.930 --> 00:06:22.529 the traditional way of striking, which was putting 00:06:22.529 --> 00:06:26.449 rent into an escrow account. Pause. Escrow. For 00:06:26.449 --> 00:06:28.790 the non -lawyers listening, that basically means 00:06:28.790 --> 00:06:30.949 giving the money to a neutral third party, right? 00:06:31.009 --> 00:06:34.230 Correct. You say to the court. Your Honor, I 00:06:34.230 --> 00:06:37.009 have the money. I'm willing to pay, but I'm holding 00:06:37.009 --> 00:06:39.290 it here in this safe account until the landlord 00:06:39.290 --> 00:06:41.689 finally fixes the boiler. It shows good faith. 00:06:41.970 --> 00:06:44.009 Exactly. It shows you aren't just trying to steal 00:06:44.009 --> 00:06:46.389 the service. You're a responsible party in a 00:06:46.389 --> 00:06:49.649 dispute. Okay, so escrow is the polite way to 00:06:49.649 --> 00:06:52.750 fight. What is the rolling strike? Evans and 00:06:52.750 --> 00:06:55.290 Levinson realized that escrow was safe, but it 00:06:55.290 --> 00:06:57.189 was predictable. The landlord knew where the 00:06:57.189 --> 00:06:58.910 money was. They knew eventually they might get 00:06:58.910 --> 00:07:01.009 it, so they came up with the rolling rent strike. 00:07:01.470 --> 00:07:04.509 In this scenario, the tenants pay rent one month 00:07:04.509 --> 00:07:07.490 and then withhold it the next, then pay again, 00:07:07.649 --> 00:07:10.209 then withhold. They toggle it. They're turning 00:07:10.209 --> 00:07:12.670 it on and off. They toggle it month by month. 00:07:12.750 --> 00:07:15.389 Or sometimes they rotate which tenants are paying 00:07:15.389 --> 00:07:19.069 and which aren't. Why? I mean, that sounds like 00:07:19.069 --> 00:07:21.129 a headache for everyone involved. It's a massive 00:07:21.129 --> 00:07:23.910 headache, and that is precisely the point. The 00:07:23.910 --> 00:07:26.610 goal is to confuse the legal process. It's like 00:07:26.610 --> 00:07:28.329 you're gaslighting the accounting department. 00:07:28.670 --> 00:07:31.379 Essentially, yes. Think about it from the landlord's 00:07:31.379 --> 00:07:34.259 perspective. You prepare eviction papers for 00:07:34.259 --> 00:07:38.000 non -payment for, say, month A. Right. By the 00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:39.959 time you get a court date, the tenant has paid 00:07:39.959 --> 00:07:42.000 for month A, but now they haven't paid for month 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:45.959 B. So your whole case for month A is moot. You 00:07:45.959 --> 00:07:47.959 have to start the paperwork all over again. Oh, 00:07:47.980 --> 00:07:50.019 that is wicked. You're always one step behind. 00:07:50.079 --> 00:07:51.959 It keeps the landlord in a state of absolute 00:07:51.959 --> 00:07:54.319 uncertainty regarding their cash flow. They can't 00:07:54.319 --> 00:07:56.319 predict their revenue from one month to the next. 00:07:56.379 --> 00:07:59.100 And the courts get clogged with all these confusing, 00:07:59.319 --> 00:08:02.379 half -resolved cases. You weaponize bureaucracy 00:08:02.379 --> 00:08:04.920 against the person who usually uses bureaucracy 00:08:04.920 --> 00:08:08.540 against you. Precisely. It turns the predictability 00:08:08.540 --> 00:08:11.139 of rent, which is the only thing banks and landlords 00:08:11.139 --> 00:08:14.100 really care about, into a variable. And frankly, 00:08:14.199 --> 00:08:16.160 it protects the tenant a little bit more than 00:08:16.160 --> 00:08:18.480 a total refusal because they can always argue 00:08:18.480 --> 00:08:22.160 in court that they have been paying. Just inconsistently. 00:08:22.220 --> 00:08:24.240 That is next level strategy. Yeah. But let's 00:08:24.240 --> 00:08:27.519 back up to the why. We know how they do it. But 00:08:27.519 --> 00:08:29.620 what pushes people to this point, I assume the 00:08:29.620 --> 00:08:31.980 rent is too damn high, is, you know, reason number 00:08:31.980 --> 00:08:35.000 one. High or rising rent is definitely the most 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:37.440 common trigger, certainly. We see that again 00:08:37.440 --> 00:08:39.759 and again throughout history. But looking at 00:08:39.759 --> 00:08:42.259 the record, poor maintenance is a massive, massive 00:08:42.259 --> 00:08:45.539 driver. We're talking about unsafe, unhygienic 00:08:45.539 --> 00:08:48.100 conditions. The classic slumlord scenario. Right. 00:08:48.729 --> 00:08:51.110 Rats, mold, no heat in the winter, holes in the 00:08:51.110 --> 00:08:53.350 floor, sewage backups, things that make a home 00:08:53.350 --> 00:08:56.789 unlivable. But also just general housing insecurity, 00:08:57.210 --> 00:08:59.269 the fear that you could be kicked out at any 00:08:59.269 --> 00:09:01.909 moment for no reason. But the notes also mention 00:09:01.909 --> 00:09:03.830 that sometimes it goes beyond the building itself. 00:09:04.299 --> 00:09:06.419 Absolutely. And this is where the rent strike 00:09:06.419 --> 00:09:09.379 connects the micro to the macro. Sometimes the 00:09:09.379 --> 00:09:11.460 strike isn't just about the boiler being broken. 00:09:11.679 --> 00:09:14.580 It's about civil rights. It's about social housing 00:09:14.580 --> 00:09:17.200 policy. It's about challenging the entire political 00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:19.500 status quo. Which we're going to see later on 00:09:19.500 --> 00:09:21.879 when we get to places like South Africa. But 00:09:21.879 --> 00:09:23.860 let's go way back to the beginning. The sources 00:09:23.860 --> 00:09:26.360 have this section called Roots of Rebellion. 00:09:26.659 --> 00:09:29.399 And I was shocked to see a date that starts with 00:09:29.399 --> 00:09:34.039 14. Yes, the 15th century. Are you telling me 00:09:34.039 --> 00:09:36.299 that medieval peasants were doing rent strikes? 00:09:36.559 --> 00:09:39.500 In a sense, yes. We have evidence from the 15th 00:09:39.500 --> 00:09:41.559 century in these things called arrears lists, 00:09:41.820 --> 00:09:43.980 which are basically the accounting books of the 00:09:43.980 --> 00:09:46.799 feudal lords. Okay. And there's a specific Latin 00:09:46.799 --> 00:09:55.700 phrase that the scribes would note down. My high 00:09:55.700 --> 00:10:00.039 school Latin is non -existent. What's that mean? 00:10:00.159 --> 00:10:02.759 It translates literally to because the tenants 00:10:02.759 --> 00:10:05.440 refused to pay. As simple as that. Simple as 00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:06.980 that. It wasn't that they couldn't pay. They 00:10:06.980 --> 00:10:09.179 refused to pay. And the really important part 00:10:09.179 --> 00:10:11.080 is that it's written in the plural tenentes. 00:10:11.580 --> 00:10:14.600 Exactly. It implies a group, a collective refusal 00:10:14.600 --> 00:10:17.580 right there, recorded in the Lord's own ledger. 00:10:18.019 --> 00:10:20.779 So this act of withholding payment as a group 00:10:20.779 --> 00:10:23.179 is centuries old. It seems that as long as there 00:10:23.179 --> 00:10:25.240 have been landlords, there have been tenants 00:10:25.240 --> 00:10:28.539 figuring out how to say no. That's wild. But 00:10:28.539 --> 00:10:30.399 the modern rent strike, the kind where you have 00:10:30.399 --> 00:10:32.600 picket lines and banners and that sort of thing, 00:10:32.639 --> 00:10:35.480 that comes later. That really accelerates with 00:10:35.480 --> 00:10:38.860 industrialization and urbanization in the late 00:10:38.860 --> 00:10:41.700 19th and early 20th centuries. Because suddenly 00:10:41.700 --> 00:10:44.299 you have masses of people cramming into cities, 00:10:44.340 --> 00:10:47.240 living in buildings owned by strangers rather 00:10:47.240 --> 00:10:49.620 than, you know, working a plot of land for a 00:10:49.620 --> 00:10:51.580 local lord. The relationship changes. It becomes 00:10:51.580 --> 00:10:54.019 anonymous. It's transactional. It becomes transactional 00:10:54.019 --> 00:10:56.139 and much more concentrated. But there's this 00:10:56.139 --> 00:10:58.509 fascinating American example. that kind of bridges 00:10:58.509 --> 00:11:00.929 that gap between the feudal style and the modern 00:11:00.929 --> 00:11:03.970 urban style, the anti -rent war in New York State. 00:11:04.090 --> 00:11:06.230 The anti -rent war, that sounds like a movie 00:11:06.230 --> 00:11:09.470 I'd definitely miss. This was 1839. 1839 to 1845, 00:11:09.909 --> 00:11:11.690 upstate New York in the Helderberg Mountains 00:11:11.690 --> 00:11:14.429 area. Okay, set the scene for us. Why was there 00:11:14.429 --> 00:11:17.389 a war in upstate New York? So even though this 00:11:17.389 --> 00:11:20.549 is America in the 19th century, You know, the 00:11:20.549 --> 00:11:22.529 land of the free upstate New York was essentially 00:11:22.529 --> 00:11:24.769 operating under a feudal system. It was called 00:11:24.769 --> 00:11:26.970 the manor system, and it was run by these figures 00:11:26.970 --> 00:11:30.029 called patroons. Patroons. That sounds very Dutch. 00:11:30.210 --> 00:11:32.190 It was a holdover from the Dutch colonial days. 00:11:32.490 --> 00:11:35.490 These huge tracts of land were owned by a single 00:11:35.490 --> 00:11:38.340 family, the patroon. And the people living there, 00:11:38.399 --> 00:11:40.720 the farmers, they didn't own their farms. They 00:11:40.720 --> 00:11:44.000 owed labor, crops and rent to the manor lord. 00:11:44.100 --> 00:11:47.379 It was basically medieval Europe. In 1840s America. 00:11:47.679 --> 00:11:51.440 That's incredible. Yes. And eventually the tenants 00:11:51.440 --> 00:11:53.759 just said, this is un -American. We fought a 00:11:53.759 --> 00:11:56.120 whole revolution to get away from kings and lords. 00:11:56.440 --> 00:11:58.679 So they declared independence from the manor 00:11:58.679 --> 00:12:00.360 system. And how did that go over? Did they just 00:12:00.360 --> 00:12:02.980 stop paying? It got violent. They formed armed 00:12:02.980 --> 00:12:05.100 bands. They actually disguised themselves as 00:12:05.100 --> 00:12:07.460 calico Indians wearing masks and these calico 00:12:07.460 --> 00:12:10.220 dresses to hide their identities. Wow. They used 00:12:10.220 --> 00:12:12.740 tin horns to signal each other across the valleys. 00:12:12.799 --> 00:12:15.460 And they would resist tax collectors and sheriffs, 00:12:15.500 --> 00:12:17.340 often physically preventing them from selling 00:12:17.340 --> 00:12:20.019 off farms for unpaid rent. So it wasn't just 00:12:20.019 --> 00:12:23.480 we're not paying. It was we are physically blocking 00:12:23.480 --> 00:12:26.440 you from enforcing the debt. Exactly. And the 00:12:26.440 --> 00:12:29.940 amazing thing is they won. They won. against 00:12:29.940 --> 00:12:31.940 a system that had been in place for centuries. 00:12:32.279 --> 00:12:35.620 They successfully demanded land reform. The state 00:12:35.620 --> 00:12:37.919 constitution was eventually amended to abolish 00:12:37.919 --> 00:12:40.679 this kind of feudal tenure. It was a massive 00:12:40.679 --> 00:12:43.279 victory against a semi -feudal aristocracy right 00:12:43.279 --> 00:12:45.100 here in New York. That's incredible. It really 00:12:45.100 --> 00:12:47.720 shows that even these deeply ingrained systems 00:12:47.720 --> 00:12:50.840 of property can be overturned if the resistance 00:12:50.840 --> 00:12:52.860 is fierce enough. So it starts in the fields, 00:12:52.860 --> 00:12:55.110 but then it moves into the city. Let's talk about 00:12:55.110 --> 00:12:58.250 New York City in the early 1900s. The sources 00:12:58.250 --> 00:13:00.809 mentioned a couple of really big strikes, 1904 00:13:00.809 --> 00:13:04.090 and 1907. The 1904 strike was the first mass 00:13:04.090 --> 00:13:06.669 rent strike in New York City. You had about 2 00:13:06.669 --> 00:13:09.429 ,000 families striking over rising rents, and 00:13:09.429 --> 00:13:11.629 they actually won some rent reductions. It proved 00:13:11.629 --> 00:13:13.889 the concept could work in the dense urban tenements. 00:13:14.149 --> 00:13:17.149 But then 1907 happens, and the scale just jumps. 00:13:17.730 --> 00:13:20.429 1907 was a massive, massive escalation. We're 00:13:20.429 --> 00:13:22.330 talking 10 ,000 families in lower Manhattan. 00:13:22.529 --> 00:13:24.750 That's not a protest. That's a small army. And 00:13:24.750 --> 00:13:28.049 speaking of armies, the general of this army 00:13:28.049 --> 00:13:31.049 is someone I had never heard of. But now I'm 00:13:31.049 --> 00:13:33.909 completely fascinated by her. Pauline Newman. 00:13:34.070 --> 00:13:35.970 Pauline Newman, yes. You have to picture this. 00:13:36.070 --> 00:13:39.850 She was 20 years old. 20. At 20, I was barely 00:13:39.850 --> 00:13:42.830 managing my own laundry. She was a Jewish immigrant, 00:13:43.090 --> 00:13:45.350 a teenager really, working in the garment industry. 00:13:45.610 --> 00:13:48.970 And she organized these 10 ,000 families. The 00:13:48.970 --> 00:13:52.100 newspapers called her the new Joan of Arc. I 00:13:52.100 --> 00:13:54.659 love that image. A 20 -year -old leading 10 ,000 00:13:54.659 --> 00:13:57.039 families against the powerful landlords of New 00:13:57.039 --> 00:14:00.019 York. And this wasn't just men, right? The sources 00:14:00.019 --> 00:14:02.399 make a big point about the role of women. Oh, 00:14:02.519 --> 00:14:04.460 that's a crucial theme that runs through almost 00:14:04.460 --> 00:14:06.940 all of these stories. Housing has historically 00:14:06.940 --> 00:14:09.279 been the domain of women, especially in this 00:14:09.279 --> 00:14:12.009 era. How so? Well, the men were at work in the 00:14:12.009 --> 00:14:14.190 factories. The women were the ones at home dealing 00:14:14.190 --> 00:14:16.269 with the rent collector, the broken stove, the 00:14:16.269 --> 00:14:18.769 leaking roof, the sick kids. They were on the 00:14:18.769 --> 00:14:20.690 front lines of the housing crisis. So it makes 00:14:20.690 --> 00:14:22.269 sense they'd be on the front lines of the resistance. 00:14:22.610 --> 00:14:24.909 Exactly. So when the resistance started, it was 00:14:24.909 --> 00:14:27.049 often led by housewives and women working in 00:14:27.049 --> 00:14:29.370 the garment industry, like Pauline Newman. And 00:14:29.370 --> 00:14:33.639 what was the result in 1907? Did they win? It 00:14:33.639 --> 00:14:36.340 was mixed but significant. About 2 ,000 of those 00:14:36.340 --> 00:14:39.600 10 ,000 families won rent reductions. It showed 00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:42.139 that even the poorest, most marginalized populations, 00:14:42.679 --> 00:14:45.240 immigrant women, garment workers could force 00:14:45.240 --> 00:14:47.620 concessions from property owners if they banded 00:14:47.620 --> 00:14:49.980 together. It really put the landlords on notice. 00:14:50.220 --> 00:14:52.259 And this wasn't just a New York thing. The sources 00:14:52.259 --> 00:14:55.639 say that around the exact same time, 1907, we 00:14:55.639 --> 00:14:57.700 see something similar happening down in Argentina. 00:14:58.120 --> 00:15:00.279 Yes, down in Buenos Aires. It's almost simultaneous, 00:15:00.460 --> 00:15:02.639 which is fascinating. They had these tenement 00:15:02.639 --> 00:15:05.029 houses. house is called Convendios. Convendios. 00:15:05.210 --> 00:15:08.610 And the strike there was massive. 32 ,000 workers 00:15:08.610 --> 00:15:11.190 were involved. And the sources note a heavy presence 00:15:11.190 --> 00:15:14.970 of anarchists and socialists. So it's very political 00:15:14.970 --> 00:15:16.889 from the start. Very. This goes back to what 00:15:16.889 --> 00:15:18.610 we said about the macro issues. This wasn't just 00:15:18.610 --> 00:15:20.830 about rent. For them, it was about class struggle. 00:15:21.049 --> 00:15:23.450 They saw the landlord as the ultimate symbol 00:15:23.450 --> 00:15:25.789 of capitalism, exploiting the worker at their 00:15:25.789 --> 00:15:28.710 most vulnerable point, their home. So the early 00:15:28.710 --> 00:15:30.529 20th century is really heating up. You have New 00:15:30.529 --> 00:15:33.139 York, you have Argentina. But then we hit World 00:15:33.139 --> 00:15:36.879 War I. And this, to me, is one of the most cinematic 00:15:36.879 --> 00:15:40.539 stories in our entire stack of research. Glasgow, 00:15:41.200 --> 00:15:45.039 1915, Mrs. Barber's army. This is arguably one 00:15:45.039 --> 00:15:47.279 of the most famous and most successful rent strikes 00:15:47.279 --> 00:15:49.600 in history. Understand it. You have to understand 00:15:49.600 --> 00:15:53.440 the context of Glasgow in 1915. The war is raging. 00:15:53.679 --> 00:15:57.460 The war is raging. It's the height of WWI. And 00:15:57.460 --> 00:16:00.320 thousands upon thousands of workers are flooding 00:16:00.320 --> 00:16:03.559 into Glasgow because the city's shipyards are 00:16:03.559 --> 00:16:05.559 building the dreadnoughts and cruisers for the 00:16:05.559 --> 00:16:08.070 Royal Navy. So it's the engine room of the war 00:16:08.070 --> 00:16:10.669 effort. Absolutely. So housing is incredibly 00:16:10.669 --> 00:16:12.870 scarce because everyone is moving there for these 00:16:12.870 --> 00:16:15.350 vital jobs. And at the same time, most of the 00:16:15.350 --> 00:16:17.730 local men, the husbands, the fathers, the sons, 00:16:17.889 --> 00:16:20.029 are away fighting in the trenches in France. 00:16:20.289 --> 00:16:22.669 Exactly. So you have a severe housing shortage 00:16:22.669 --> 00:16:24.870 and the households that are left are mostly run 00:16:24.870 --> 00:16:26.909 by women. And the landlords saw an opportunity. 00:16:27.360 --> 00:16:30.519 A huge one. It's cynical, but they viewed these 00:16:30.519 --> 00:16:33.600 women as easy targets. They started raising rents, 00:16:33.600 --> 00:16:36.620 sometimes by up to 25%. They just figured the 00:16:36.620 --> 00:16:38.779 men are gone. These women will just pay up or 00:16:38.779 --> 00:16:40.779 get out. They have no protection. Big mistake. 00:16:41.019 --> 00:16:43.539 Huge mistake. They completely underestimated 00:16:43.539 --> 00:16:45.639 the women of Govan and Partick, specifically 00:16:45.639 --> 00:16:48.960 women like Mary Barber, Mary Burns Laird, Helen 00:16:48.960 --> 00:16:52.059 Crawford, and Agnes Dolan. This is Barber's army. 00:16:52.240 --> 00:16:54.720 They organized a resistance that was incredibly 00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:57.629 physical. It wasn't about writing letters to 00:16:57.629 --> 00:17:00.090 the editor or filing complaints. This was direct 00:17:00.090 --> 00:17:02.730 action. The details here are hilarious and also 00:17:02.730 --> 00:17:05.390 awesome. It says they used visceral physical 00:17:05.390 --> 00:17:08.410 resistance. They did. They had a system. The 00:17:08.410 --> 00:17:10.390 women in the tenements would sit in their windows 00:17:10.390 --> 00:17:13.470 with bells. And if they saw a bailiff, that's 00:17:13.470 --> 00:17:14.930 the officer sent to evict someone approaching 00:17:14.930 --> 00:17:16.569 the street, they'd start ringing the bells. It's 00:17:16.569 --> 00:17:18.569 an alarm system. It's an alarm system. And suddenly 00:17:18.569 --> 00:17:21.410 hundreds of women would pour out into the street. 00:17:22.380 --> 00:17:24.819 And they were armed. Armed with what? Not guns, 00:17:24.880 --> 00:17:27.599 I assume? No, no. Armed with flower bombs, wet 00:17:27.599 --> 00:17:33.740 clothes, and general refuse. So imagine being 00:17:33.740 --> 00:17:35.440 a bailiff. You're just trying to serve a notice, 00:17:35.559 --> 00:17:38.039 and you get pelted with a sack of flour and last 00:17:38.039 --> 00:17:40.119 night's dinner scraps. And it gets even more 00:17:40.119 --> 00:17:42.900 humiliating for them. The sources mention a very 00:17:42.900 --> 00:17:46.559 specific tactic. They would pull down the bailiff's 00:17:46.559 --> 00:17:50.019 trousers. Stop. They pantsed the officers of 00:17:50.019 --> 00:17:52.190 the court. They pantsed them. In the middle of 00:17:52.190 --> 00:17:54.049 the street, in front of the whole neighborhood. 00:17:54.430 --> 00:17:56.869 In some cases, they would physically pick them 00:17:56.869 --> 00:17:59.470 up and throw them into the midden, which is the 00:17:59.470 --> 00:18:02.069 communal trash heap in the backcourt of the tenement. 00:18:02.250 --> 00:18:04.230 I mean, the psychological impact of that, it's 00:18:04.230 --> 00:18:06.349 not just resistance, it's total humiliation. 00:18:06.390 --> 00:18:08.950 It's saying, your authority means nothing here. 00:18:09.069 --> 00:18:12.470 You're a joke. It sends a very, very clear message. 00:18:12.569 --> 00:18:14.670 You cannot enforce an eviction if you are being 00:18:14.670 --> 00:18:17.769 laughed at and covered in garbage. But the real 00:18:17.769 --> 00:18:20.700 genius of Mrs. Barber... And the other organizers 00:18:20.700 --> 00:18:23.160 was that they knew this physical resistance wouldn't 00:18:23.160 --> 00:18:25.119 be enough on its own. They needed more leverage. 00:18:25.359 --> 00:18:28.259 Exactly. The strike had to spread beyond the 00:18:28.259 --> 00:18:29.960 tenements. And it did. It went to the shipyards. 00:18:30.099 --> 00:18:32.799 That is the ultimate nuclear leverage we talked 00:18:32.799 --> 00:18:35.200 about earlier. The women went to the shipyards 00:18:35.200 --> 00:18:37.559 where their sons and brothers and neighbors were 00:18:37.559 --> 00:18:40.759 working on these vital warships. And the shipbuilders, 00:18:40.759 --> 00:18:43.920 in solidarity, threatened to go on strike. They 00:18:43.920 --> 00:18:46.339 said, if you evict our families from their homes, 00:18:46.500 --> 00:18:49.150 we stop building ships for the war. And there's 00:18:49.150 --> 00:18:51.769 a war on. They are building the very ships that 00:18:51.769 --> 00:18:54.470 are fighting the Germans. Precisely. The government 00:18:54.470 --> 00:18:57.329 in London panicked. They absolutely could not 00:18:57.329 --> 00:18:59.329 afford a labor strike in the munitions sector. 00:18:59.470 --> 00:19:01.289 It was a direct threat to national security. 00:19:01.930 --> 00:19:04.470 Lloyd George, who was the minister of munitions 00:19:04.470 --> 00:19:06.630 at the time, basically got on the phone and said, 00:19:06.730 --> 00:19:10.150 fix this now. So the landlords weren't just fighting 00:19:10.150 --> 00:19:12.609 a bunch of angry tenants anymore. They were suddenly 00:19:12.609 --> 00:19:15.549 fighting the entire British Empire's war effort. 00:19:15.690 --> 00:19:18.089 They were. The balance of power shifted completely. 00:19:18.700 --> 00:19:22.339 So on November 27, 1915, the government rushed 00:19:22.339 --> 00:19:24.519 through legislation specifically to restrict 00:19:24.519 --> 00:19:28.420 rents to pre -war levels. The 1915 Rent Restrictions 00:19:28.420 --> 00:19:30.839 Act. It was a total victory for the tenants. 00:19:31.039 --> 00:19:33.259 And it happened because of that incredible solidarity. 00:19:33.559 --> 00:19:36.500 There was even a famous protest where thousands 00:19:36.500 --> 00:19:39.059 of workers marched to the court to support five 00:19:39.059 --> 00:19:41.980 women who'd been summoned for nonpayment. The 00:19:41.980 --> 00:19:44.960 crowd was so huge and angry, the sheriff had 00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:47.839 to dismiss the case just to prevent a riot. That 00:19:47.839 --> 00:19:50.640 is such a powerful example of how housing issues 00:19:50.640 --> 00:19:53.279 can ripple out into the wider economy and even 00:19:53.279 --> 00:19:56.160 national security. If you push tenants too hard, 00:19:56.299 --> 00:19:58.279 you might accidentally shut down a shipyard. 00:19:58.380 --> 00:20:00.359 Exactly. It proves that housing is infrastructure. 00:20:00.599 --> 00:20:02.940 If the housing isn't stable, the workforce isn't 00:20:02.940 --> 00:20:05.220 stable. Okay, so let's move forward a bit. The 00:20:05.220 --> 00:20:08.259 war ends, but the strikes don't. We enter the 00:20:08.259 --> 00:20:11.880 interwar years and things get cold. Very, very 00:20:11.880 --> 00:20:14.920 cold. We're back in New York City, 1918 to 1920. 00:20:15.240 --> 00:20:17.839 What's the context here? The war is over. The 00:20:17.839 --> 00:20:20.259 war is over, but you have a housing shortage 00:20:20.259 --> 00:20:22.180 caused by it. And on top of that, you have a 00:20:22.180 --> 00:20:24.400 severe coal shortage. It was a brutal winter 00:20:24.400 --> 00:20:26.920 and landlords were either running out of coal 00:20:26.920 --> 00:20:29.079 or in some cases refusing to buy it because the 00:20:29.079 --> 00:20:31.160 price had spiked so high. So they just stopped 00:20:31.160 --> 00:20:33.740 heating the buildings in New York winter. Yes, 00:20:33.740 --> 00:20:36.079 but they kept raising the rents. You're literally 00:20:36.079 --> 00:20:37.819 freezing to death and you're paying more for 00:20:37.819 --> 00:20:40.319 the privilege. That sounds like a recipe for 00:20:40.319 --> 00:20:42.339 a riot. It spurred what were called the freezing 00:20:42.339 --> 00:20:45.180 flat strikes. It actually began as a safety issue. 00:20:45.440 --> 00:20:48.099 People were getting sick, literally dying of 00:20:48.099 --> 00:20:50.359 pneumonia in their own apartments. So the strike 00:20:50.359 --> 00:20:53.539 morphed from give us heat to we will not pay 00:20:53.539 --> 00:20:56.299 you rent until we get heat. And the scale here 00:20:56.299 --> 00:20:59.259 seems massive as well. We're talking tens, maybe 00:20:59.259 --> 00:21:01.480 hundreds of thousands of tenants involved across 00:21:01.480 --> 00:21:04.599 the city. It forced the state to act. And this 00:21:04.599 --> 00:21:06.960 led directly to the passage of emergency rent 00:21:06.960 --> 00:21:10.039 laws in New York. Why is that historically significant? 00:21:10.380 --> 00:21:12.380 Because these were essentially the nation's first 00:21:12.380 --> 00:21:15.180 comprehensive rent control measures. They stayed 00:21:15.180 --> 00:21:18.099 in place all the way until 1929. So if you live 00:21:18.099 --> 00:21:19.900 in a rent -stabilized apartment in New York City 00:21:19.900 --> 00:21:22.940 today, the DNA of those laws comes directly from 00:21:22.940 --> 00:21:25.779 these freezing tenants in 1918. It's amazing 00:21:25.779 --> 00:21:29.339 how these acute moments of crisis write the laws 00:21:29.339 --> 00:21:32.200 that we live by a century later. And it happens 00:21:32.200 --> 00:21:35.299 again in Chicago just a year later, 1920 -1921. 00:21:35.740 --> 00:21:38.539 Another series of strikes there led to the Kessinger 00:21:38.539 --> 00:21:41.759 Tenant Laws. But there's a really specific detail 00:21:41.759 --> 00:21:44.440 in the Chicago Victory that I love. The heat 00:21:44.440 --> 00:21:47.440 ordinance. Yes. They passed a city ordinance 00:21:47.440 --> 00:21:50.380 requiring landlords to keep flats above 68 degrees 00:21:50.380 --> 00:21:53.000 Fahrenheit during the winter. 68 degrees. So 00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:54.859 that's where that number comes from. If you rent 00:21:54.859 --> 00:21:57.759 an apartment in Chicago today, or really in many 00:21:57.759 --> 00:22:00.599 U .S. cities, there is a legal requirement for 00:22:00.599 --> 00:22:03.740 a minimum temperature. That rate exists because 00:22:03.740 --> 00:22:06.859 people went on strike for it in 1921. It defines 00:22:06.859 --> 00:22:09.319 the baseline standard of living. It says you 00:22:09.319 --> 00:22:12.339 cannot legally charge rent for an icebox. And 00:22:12.339 --> 00:22:14.480 these weren't just happening. the U .S. The sources 00:22:14.480 --> 00:22:17.740 mentioned Barcelona in 1931. A massive strike. 00:22:17.839 --> 00:22:19.579 The numbers are hard to pin down, but estimates 00:22:19.579 --> 00:22:22.500 range from 5 ,000 to 100 ,000 people on strike. 00:22:22.660 --> 00:22:24.960 Wow. But it wasn't always a win, though. We have 00:22:24.960 --> 00:22:27.019 to be honest about the risks. The source mentions 00:22:27.019 --> 00:22:30.099 Sweden in the 1930s. Right. The Olskroken conflict 00:22:30.099 --> 00:22:34.200 in Gothenburg, 1936 -37. Sweden seems like a 00:22:34.200 --> 00:22:35.579 place that would have strong tenant protections. 00:22:36.170 --> 00:22:39.349 It does now. But back then it was a huge battle. 00:22:39.509 --> 00:22:41.849 The tenants went on strike, but the landlords 00:22:41.849 --> 00:22:44.410 were very organized and they retaliated heavily. 00:22:44.630 --> 00:22:46.670 What happened? What did they do? They just started 00:22:46.670 --> 00:22:48.950 evicting people en masse. Hundreds of tenants 00:22:48.950 --> 00:22:51.829 were put out of their homes. The landlords had 00:22:51.829 --> 00:22:54.329 the resources to wait them out and the full backing 00:22:54.329 --> 00:22:56.750 of the legal system to remove them. Ouch. So 00:22:56.750 --> 00:22:59.150 the tenants lost. The tenants ultimately lost 00:22:59.150 --> 00:23:01.549 that conflict. Yeah. And it signaled the end 00:23:01.549 --> 00:23:03.910 of tenant militancy in that region for quite 00:23:03.910 --> 00:23:06.619 a long time. It's a really sobering reminder 00:23:06.619 --> 00:23:09.460 that collective action doesn't guarantee a win. 00:23:10.109 --> 00:23:12.589 the opposition has leverage, too. Right. It's 00:23:12.589 --> 00:23:15.049 not a magic wand. And sometimes a win isn't even 00:23:15.049 --> 00:23:17.150 about the rent check at all. As we move into 00:23:17.150 --> 00:23:19.970 the 1960s and the civil rights era in the U .S., 00:23:19.970 --> 00:23:22.609 the rent strike starts to look different. It's 00:23:22.609 --> 00:23:25.650 not just, I can't pay. It's, I won't pay because 00:23:25.650 --> 00:23:27.970 you are stripping me of my basic human dignity. 00:23:28.230 --> 00:23:30.910 The shift in the 1960s is profound. You look 00:23:30.910 --> 00:23:34.569 at Harlem in 1963 and 64. This strike was led 00:23:34.569 --> 00:23:36.930 by an organizer named Jesse Gray. Jesse Gray. 00:23:37.029 --> 00:23:39.450 He was a brilliant organizer. And he realized... 00:23:39.470 --> 00:23:42.529 that for the tenants in Harlem, the issue wasn't 00:23:42.529 --> 00:23:44.690 just the dollar amount on the lease. It was the 00:23:44.690 --> 00:23:46.970 rats. It was the falling plaster. It was the 00:23:46.970 --> 00:23:49.809 unlivable, dangerous conditions. He famously 00:23:49.809 --> 00:23:52.190 brought a cage full of rats to a court hearing 00:23:52.190 --> 00:23:54.990 to show the judge what his tenants were living 00:23:54.990 --> 00:23:57.269 with every day. That's effective. Yeah. It's 00:23:57.269 --> 00:23:59.430 a very visceral way of asserting that a lease 00:23:59.430 --> 00:24:01.869 is a two -way street. You pay money, you get 00:24:01.869 --> 00:24:03.710 a habitable home. If the home isn't habitable, 00:24:03.789 --> 00:24:06.069 the money stops. Exactly. And this philosophy, 00:24:06.230 --> 00:24:09.019 this tactic. was picked up by the biggest name 00:24:09.019 --> 00:24:11.059 in the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King 00:24:11.059 --> 00:24:13.859 Jr. You know, I think a lot of people know MLK 00:24:13.859 --> 00:24:16.819 for the marches and the speeches, I have a dream, 00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:20.319 voting rights. But I had no idea he was so deeply 00:24:20.319 --> 00:24:22.480 involved in housing specifically. This was the 00:24:22.480 --> 00:24:26.099 Chicago Freedom Movement in 1966. Yes. Dr. King 00:24:26.099 --> 00:24:28.180 knew that civil rights meant very little if you 00:24:28.180 --> 00:24:30.660 were forced to live in squalor. Economic justice 00:24:30.660 --> 00:24:33.640 was central to his vision. So he and Karata Scott 00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:35.740 King did something remarkable. They actually 00:24:35.740 --> 00:24:38.019 moved into a slum apartment on the west side 00:24:38.019 --> 00:24:41.240 of Chicago, 1312 South Holman Avenue. They moved 00:24:41.240 --> 00:24:43.900 in themselves. They moved in. They wanted to 00:24:43.900 --> 00:24:46.480 experience the conditions firsthand and, just 00:24:46.480 --> 00:24:48.960 as importantly, expose them to the national media. 00:24:50.119 --> 00:24:52.180 It was sweltering in the summer, freezing in 00:24:52.180 --> 00:24:54.339 the winter, and the conditions were shocking 00:24:54.339 --> 00:24:56.660 even to them. Talk about walking the walk. And 00:24:56.660 --> 00:24:59.500 they tried a very innovative tactic called trusteeship. 00:24:59.720 --> 00:25:02.059 The idea was that the tenants would clean up 00:25:02.059 --> 00:25:05.079 the building themselves, they would claim trusteeship 00:25:05.079 --> 00:25:07.779 over the property, and then they would pay their 00:25:07.779 --> 00:25:10.599 rent to their own organization, the Freedom Movement, 00:25:10.720 --> 00:25:13.759 to use for repairs rather than paying the landlord 00:25:13.759 --> 00:25:15.779 who was neglecting the building. That sounds 00:25:15.779 --> 00:25:17.839 incredibly logical. You won't fix it, so we'll 00:25:17.839 --> 00:25:21.019 fix it with your money. Logical, yes. But legally, 00:25:21.180 --> 00:25:24.400 very, very difficult. Did it work? The landlord 00:25:24.400 --> 00:25:27.299 actually sued them and won in court. It really 00:25:27.299 --> 00:25:29.680 highlights how the law is so often written to 00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:32.420 protect property rights over tenant rights, even 00:25:32.420 --> 00:25:35.099 when the conditions are horrific. The judge basically 00:25:35.099 --> 00:25:37.980 said, I don't care how bad the landlord is, you 00:25:37.980 --> 00:25:39.779 can't just take over the building. So it was 00:25:39.779 --> 00:25:42.960 a legal loss, but was it a moral victory? It 00:25:42.960 --> 00:25:46.279 was a massive moral victory. It brought national 00:25:46.279 --> 00:25:49.460 attention to the issue of urban slums. It forced 00:25:49.460 --> 00:25:52.160 the city of Chicago to confront its housing problems. 00:25:52.400 --> 00:25:54.660 And it paved the way for later housing reforms 00:25:54.660 --> 00:25:57.640 and the Fair Housing Act. But around the exact 00:25:57.640 --> 00:26:00.000 same time, we have a much clearer victory out 00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:02.299 in California. And this wasn't city apartments. 00:26:02.400 --> 00:26:05.220 This was farm workers. Yes, the two -layer labor 00:26:05.220 --> 00:26:09.779 camps from 1965 to 1968. The story is intense. 00:26:09.920 --> 00:26:11.859 We're talking about the National Farm Workers 00:26:11.859 --> 00:26:15.319 Association, which would become the UFW. Exactly. 00:26:15.319 --> 00:26:17.960 And these workers were living in what were just 00:26:17.960 --> 00:26:20.220 called tin houses. Literally tin huts. Metal 00:26:20.220 --> 00:26:23.339 shacks in the blazing California heat. No insulation, 00:26:23.599 --> 00:26:26.119 terrible sanitation. They had actually been deemed 00:26:26.119 --> 00:26:28.579 uninhabitable by the county, but the rent just 00:26:28.579 --> 00:26:31.380 kept going up. So the growers who own the land 00:26:31.380 --> 00:26:33.500 were just treating the housing as another tool 00:26:33.500 --> 00:26:35.339 to extract money from the workers. It was part 00:26:35.339 --> 00:26:37.259 of the system of control. So they struck. For 00:26:37.259 --> 00:26:39.200 how long? They struck for three years. Three 00:26:39.200 --> 00:26:41.220 years. Yeah. How do you sustain a rent strike 00:26:41.220 --> 00:26:43.670 for three years? It takes an incredible amount 00:26:43.670 --> 00:26:47.109 of community cohesion and just pure grit, but 00:26:47.109 --> 00:26:49.670 they won. They stopped the rent increases and 00:26:49.670 --> 00:26:52.009 eventually those tin huts were torn down and 00:26:52.009 --> 00:26:55.069 replaced with actual new houses. It's such a 00:26:55.069 --> 00:26:57.609 stark example of how even the most vulnerable 00:26:57.609 --> 00:27:01.130 workers, migrant farm laborers could stand up 00:27:01.130 --> 00:27:03.849 to powerful agricultural interests if they held 00:27:03.849 --> 00:27:06.369 the line. We also see rent strikes being used 00:27:06.369 --> 00:27:08.910 in these really intense political conflicts like 00:27:08.910 --> 00:27:11.859 the troubles in Northern Ireland. Yes. It was 00:27:11.859 --> 00:27:14.279 used as a direct protest against internment, 00:27:14.400 --> 00:27:17.380 which was imprisonment without trial. People 00:27:17.380 --> 00:27:19.720 would withhold their rent and council rates from 00:27:19.720 --> 00:27:21.859 the local councils to deny the government revenue. 00:27:22.119 --> 00:27:24.039 So it was a way of defunding the state that was 00:27:24.039 --> 00:27:26.259 oppressing them. Exactly. It turns a household 00:27:26.259 --> 00:27:29.079 bill into a weapon of political protest. And 00:27:29.079 --> 00:27:31.400 South Africa in the 1980s. This is maybe the 00:27:31.400 --> 00:27:33.700 ultimate example of the political rent strike. 00:27:34.140 --> 00:27:36.420 In South Africa, the rent strike was an explicit 00:27:36.420 --> 00:27:39.200 weapon against apartheid. The goal wasn't just 00:27:39.200 --> 00:27:41.920 better housing. The goal was to end the entire 00:27:41.920 --> 00:27:44.240 regime. They wanted to gain ownership of their 00:27:44.240 --> 00:27:46.400 housing and cripple the state's control over 00:27:46.400 --> 00:27:49.200 the townships. And the state responded with force, 00:27:49.279 --> 00:27:52.880 I assume? Oh, yes. They sent troops into Soweto 00:27:52.880 --> 00:27:56.599 in 1987. It was treated as an insurrection. It 00:27:56.599 --> 00:27:59.940 was a war zone. But here is the incredible thing. 00:28:01.039 --> 00:28:04.660 By the 1990s, the state officials effectively 00:28:04.660 --> 00:28:07.519 stopped trying to collect. They just gave up. 00:28:07.619 --> 00:28:10.359 They gave up. The system simply could not process 00:28:10.359 --> 00:28:13.279 that level of mass noncompliance. Thousands of 00:28:13.279 --> 00:28:15.599 housing units were effectively turned over to 00:28:15.599 --> 00:28:17.799 the tenants because there was no way to force 00:28:17.799 --> 00:28:20.000 them to pay. It goes right back to that nuclear 00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:22.539 option idea we started with. You can evict one 00:28:22.539 --> 00:28:26.480 person. You can maybe evict 10. Can you evict 00:28:26.480 --> 00:28:30.210 an entire township? No. When the noncompliance 00:28:30.210 --> 00:28:32.789 is total, the enforcement mechanism breaks down. 00:28:33.150 --> 00:28:35.690 It proves that the entire system relies on our 00:28:35.690 --> 00:28:37.930 cooperation. And when we withdraw that cooperation, 00:28:38.369 --> 00:28:40.849 the gears just grind to a halt. So we've covered 00:28:40.849 --> 00:28:42.650 a lot of history, but I want to bring this into 00:28:42.650 --> 00:28:44.450 the present day because people might be listening 00:28:44.450 --> 00:28:46.309 and thinking, oh, rent strikes are a black and 00:28:46.309 --> 00:28:48.049 white photo thing. They happen in history books. 00:28:48.130 --> 00:28:50.450 Right. But they're happening right now. And interestingly, 00:28:50.650 --> 00:28:52.769 one of the hot bits for them is at universities. 00:28:53.130 --> 00:28:55.569 This is a newer trend, and it's really interesting 00:28:55.569 --> 00:28:59.009 to look at. Take UCL University College London. 00:28:59.210 --> 00:29:02.509 Between 2015 and 2018, you saw a huge movement 00:29:02.509 --> 00:29:05.349 called Cut the Rent. Why were students striking? 00:29:05.569 --> 00:29:08.069 I mean, student housing is notoriously bad, but 00:29:08.069 --> 00:29:10.329 usually you just suffer through it for a year 00:29:10.329 --> 00:29:12.289 and then you leave. That's the usual pattern. 00:29:12.829 --> 00:29:15.430 But the rents at UCL and other London universities 00:29:15.430 --> 00:29:18.029 were becoming astronomical. And the conditions 00:29:18.029 --> 00:29:21.109 were still terrible. Mice, flooding, the usual 00:29:21.109 --> 00:29:23.750 nightmares. But you're paying premium London 00:29:23.750 --> 00:29:26.210 prices for it. So the students argued that the 00:29:26.210 --> 00:29:28.250 university was acting like a corporate landlord, 00:29:28.490 --> 00:29:31.569 not an educational institution. Exactly. Exploiting 00:29:31.569 --> 00:29:34.029 them for profit rather than providing a service. 00:29:34.210 --> 00:29:36.650 So they organized. And how big did it get? It 00:29:36.650 --> 00:29:39.109 started small. Just 60 students in one hall. 00:29:39.559 --> 00:29:42.319 But it grew to over 1 ,000 students across the 00:29:42.319 --> 00:29:45.119 university. And yes, they won hundreds of thousands 00:29:45.119 --> 00:29:47.960 of pounds in concessions and rent freezes. Eventually, 00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:51.319 the total figure cited is over 1 .5 million pounds. 00:29:51.559 --> 00:29:53.839 That is real money. That is a significant victory. 00:29:54.359 --> 00:29:56.799 And the campaign spread to other UK universities, 00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:00.500 too. It shows that the student demographic, which 00:30:00.500 --> 00:30:03.099 is often seen as transient and hard to organize, 00:30:03.339 --> 00:30:06.299 can actually wield significant power. They realize 00:30:06.299 --> 00:30:07.980 they're not just students, they're also tenants 00:30:07.980 --> 00:30:10.059 and they're customers and they have collective 00:30:10.059 --> 00:30:12.579 bargaining power. There's also a very recent 00:30:12.579 --> 00:30:15.640 example here in North America, in Toronto Thorncliffe 00:30:15.640 --> 00:30:19.740 Park from 2023 into 2024. This one is a classic 00:30:19.740 --> 00:30:22.619 case. The landlords wanted an above guideline 00:30:22.619 --> 00:30:25.539 rent increase about 5 .5 % and they were citing 00:30:25.539 --> 00:30:27.660 renovations they'd done in the common areas. 00:30:27.859 --> 00:30:30.180 The lobby looks great, but my sink is still broken. 00:30:30.420 --> 00:30:33.140 That's exactly it. Meanwhile, the tenants were 00:30:33.140 --> 00:30:35.059 claiming that their actual apartment issues, 00:30:35.200 --> 00:30:37.079 the real maintenance problems, were being completely 00:30:37.079 --> 00:30:39.900 ignored. So what tactic did they use? They used 00:30:39.900 --> 00:30:42.039 a tactic where they paid their rent into a trust 00:30:42.039 --> 00:30:44.220 held by the landlord and tenant board. It's a 00:30:44.220 --> 00:30:46.960 sort of formal, legal way of saying, we have 00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:49.200 the money, we are willing to pay, but not until 00:30:49.200 --> 00:30:51.559 you justify this increase and address our concerns. 00:30:51.880 --> 00:30:54.680 It's a more Modern, bureaucratically savvy version 00:30:54.680 --> 00:30:57.339 of the old escrow account. I just want to mention 00:30:57.339 --> 00:31:01.180 one more from the UK Kirkby in 1972, because 00:31:01.180 --> 00:31:03.279 it brings us right back to that powerful theme 00:31:03.279 --> 00:31:06.559 of women leading the charge. The Tower Hill estate. 00:31:07.039 --> 00:31:11.680 A 14 -month strike by 3 ,000 tenants. 14 months. 00:31:12.220 --> 00:31:14.859 The sheer endurance of these groups is just mind 00:31:14.859 --> 00:31:16.740 -blowing to me. It really is. And this was led 00:31:16.740 --> 00:31:19.059 by the Unfair Rents Action Group, which was comprised 00:31:19.059 --> 00:31:22.559 mostly of women. The context was a factory closure 00:31:22.559 --> 00:31:25.640 crisis that hit the town hard, and it coincided 00:31:25.640 --> 00:31:28.660 with a big national rent hike. So a perfect storm 00:31:28.660 --> 00:31:30.720 of economic hardship. A perfect storm. It was 00:31:30.720 --> 00:31:33.480 a fight for survival. They picketed. They marched. 00:31:33.740 --> 00:31:36.200 They physically blocked evictions for over a 00:31:36.200 --> 00:31:38.460 year. It wasn't just about the rent increase. 00:31:38.579 --> 00:31:40.920 It was about protecting their entire community 00:31:40.920 --> 00:31:43.269 from dissolving. So we've looked at all these 00:31:43.269 --> 00:31:45.750 examples from medieval England to modern Toronto, 00:31:45.910 --> 00:31:47.809 but there's a section in our notes called the 00:31:47.809 --> 00:31:50.269 silence in history. And this really struck me. 00:31:50.309 --> 00:31:52.089 Why don't we learn about this in school? We learn 00:31:52.089 --> 00:31:53.990 about labor strikes. We learn about coal miners 00:31:53.990 --> 00:31:56.529 and factory workers. Why is the rent strike so 00:31:56.529 --> 00:31:58.900 often treated differently or just ignored? It's 00:31:58.900 --> 00:32:01.519 a great question. And I think part of it is just 00:32:01.519 --> 00:32:04.279 the nature of the record keeping. Rent strikes 00:32:04.279 --> 00:32:06.980 often rely heavily on a word of mouth and community 00:32:06.980 --> 00:32:10.240 organizing. Unlike big labor unions that have 00:32:10.240 --> 00:32:12.700 archives and newsletters and professional historians, 00:32:13.160 --> 00:32:15.920 tenant groups are often ad hoc. They form to 00:32:15.920 --> 00:32:18.099 fix a specific problem and then they might dissolve. 00:32:18.359 --> 00:32:20.740 Exactly. They form, they fight, they win or lose 00:32:20.740 --> 00:32:23.740 and they dissolve. And historically, who writes 00:32:23.740 --> 00:32:26.460 the history? It's not the tenants. The records 00:32:26.460 --> 00:32:29.390 we do have are often from the police. So they 00:32:29.390 --> 00:32:32.549 focus on the disturbance, the riot, not the underlying 00:32:32.549 --> 00:32:35.250 conditions that caused it. Right. You see the 00:32:35.250 --> 00:32:36.970 arrest record, but you don't see the freezing 00:32:36.970 --> 00:32:39.410 apartment that led to the protest. You see the 00:32:39.410 --> 00:32:42.210 action, not the reason. That's a perfect way 00:32:42.210 --> 00:32:44.730 to put it. Also, traditionally, historians analyze 00:32:44.730 --> 00:32:47.029 this only as a subset of the labor movement. 00:32:47.230 --> 00:32:49.829 It was seen as workers' issues, but secondary 00:32:49.829 --> 00:32:52.569 to what happened on the factory floor. But since 00:32:52.569 --> 00:32:54.670 the Great Recession of 2008, there's been a real 00:32:54.670 --> 00:32:57.079 shift. Academics are starting to look at housing 00:32:57.079 --> 00:32:59.460 movements as a standalone field of study in its 00:32:59.460 --> 00:33:01.839 own right. That makes a lot of sense. As the 00:33:01.839 --> 00:33:04.500 gig economy grows and the nature of traditional 00:33:04.500 --> 00:33:06.940 labor changes, you know, not everyone works in 00:33:06.940 --> 00:33:09.960 a factory anymore. The one thing that connects 00:33:09.960 --> 00:33:12.599 almost everyone is the need for a roof over their 00:33:12.599 --> 00:33:15.140 head. Precisely. For many people, the home is 00:33:15.140 --> 00:33:17.380 the new factory floor in terms of economic struggle. 00:33:17.619 --> 00:33:19.940 Rent is the biggest bill most people pay every 00:33:19.940 --> 00:33:22.240 month. So the conflict naturally moves there. 00:33:22.480 --> 00:33:24.500 So when we step back and look at this entire 00:33:24.500 --> 00:33:26.980 history. What's the big picture? What does this 00:33:26.980 --> 00:33:29.039 all mean? I think if we connect all these dots, 00:33:29.180 --> 00:33:31.539 it reveals a fundamental tension in our society. 00:33:31.779 --> 00:33:34.640 The tension between property rights and human 00:33:34.640 --> 00:33:37.740 needs. The right to make a profit from your property 00:33:37.740 --> 00:33:40.440 versus the right to not freeze to death in your 00:33:40.440 --> 00:33:43.880 apartment. Bluntly put, yes. A rent strike forces 00:33:43.880 --> 00:33:46.180 that question out into the open. It challenges 00:33:46.180 --> 00:33:47.960 the assumption that the ownership of property 00:33:47.960 --> 00:33:50.799 is an absolute, unquestionable right. It asserts 00:33:50.799 --> 00:33:52.779 that the tenant, the person actually living in 00:33:52.779 --> 00:33:55.059 the space, has a stake and a voice in the conditions 00:33:55.059 --> 00:33:57.220 of their own existence. It's really about dignity. 00:33:57.710 --> 00:34:00.390 It is about leverage and dignity. It reminds 00:34:00.390 --> 00:34:03.369 us that laws and contracts are not forces of 00:34:03.369 --> 00:34:06.109 nature like gravity. They are agreements made 00:34:06.109 --> 00:34:08.750 by people. And when the terms of those agreements 00:34:08.750 --> 00:34:11.969 become unlivable, history shows again and again 00:34:11.969 --> 00:34:15.230 that people will find ways to break them. And 00:34:15.230 --> 00:34:17.030 that leads me to a final thought I've been mulling 00:34:17.030 --> 00:34:19.530 over listening to all this. We talked about the 00:34:19.530 --> 00:34:22.289 hidden history, the straits that didn't get recorded. 00:34:22.829 --> 00:34:24.989 The ones that didn't make the newspapers. Quiet 00:34:24.989 --> 00:34:28.449 rebellions. Yeah, exactly. If so many of these 00:34:28.449 --> 00:34:31.230 massive history -changing strikes went unrecorded 00:34:31.230 --> 00:34:33.510 simply because tenants didn't keep meticulous 00:34:33.510 --> 00:34:36.750 records, how many are happening right now? How 00:34:36.750 --> 00:34:39.150 many small buildings or duplexes or neighborhoods 00:34:39.150 --> 00:34:42.190 are in some quiet state of rebellion that we 00:34:42.190 --> 00:34:45.230 won't know about for decades? It's a very provocative 00:34:45.230 --> 00:34:47.289 thought. The history of this kind of resistance 00:34:47.289 --> 00:34:49.610 is likely so much larger than the history we 00:34:49.610 --> 00:34:51.699 have written down. We only see the ones that 00:34:51.699 --> 00:34:54.300 exploded into the public view. We don't see the 00:34:54.300 --> 00:34:56.579 thousands of small ones that were settled in 00:34:56.579 --> 00:34:59.719 a quiet, tense conversation after a check didn't 00:34:59.719 --> 00:35:01.940 arrive on the first of the month. Something to 00:35:01.940 --> 00:35:03.619 think about the next time you sign that lease. 00:35:04.199 --> 00:35:06.539 You might be stepping into a history you didn't 00:35:06.539 --> 00:35:10.079 even know existed. Indeed. That's it for this 00:35:10.079 --> 00:35:12.780 deep dive. Thanks for listening. And keep looking 00:35:12.780 --> 00:35:15.519 closely at the world around you. You never know 00:35:15.519 --> 00:35:16.659 what you'll find in the fine print.