Let’s ETOC

Sebastian and Kelly discuss the exciting rise of tenant unionization on the socialist left and how it fits into the broader scope of working-class organizing and the crucial fight for decent housing. To learn more about how you can organize with your neighbors, join the ETOC summer cohort, starting August 8th!

Join the Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee’s Summer Cohort, starting on August 8th! 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Obvious way where it's like, yeah, there's a landlord and I have to pay him every month in order for me not to be kicked out. And what tenant organizing does is it helps people imagine like what would be like if you disrupted that. Hi comrades, and welcome to CLASS, the podcast of Democratic Socialists of America's National Political Education Committee, or NPEC. My name is Michaela, and I'm the current chair of NPEC and a member of North New Jersey DSA. Before we dive in, a reminder that CLAS is available on all major podcast platforms. Please consider becoming a DSA member by following the link in the podcast description. You can also send us a message about the episode and sign up for Red Letter, NPEC's monthly newsletter using the provided links. The Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee, or ETOC, is a project inspired by the now six-year-old EWOC, or Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee that DSA started during COVID to help workers to fight for their rights in the workplace during and after the COVID epidemic. During that time, tenant organizing and tenant unions grew too, as evictions increased and renters were faced with increasing housing precarity. Tenant organizing continues to grow, and the struggle for housing justice has only become more crucial a field of work for socialists as working class people are priced out everywhere, and developers and investment firms engage in land grabs and speculation. It's more than just a few tenants of a certain age in a few major cities, and it's more than just gentrification. Staying housed is a human plight all over the country. And socialists believe housing is a human right. ETOK's fall session of trainings begins on August 8th, and we urge you to join to learn how to organize with your neighbors. The link for that will be in our show notes. And here to discuss all of this with us are Kelly, co-chair of Boston DSA and former co-chair of Boston DSA's Housing Working Group, and currently a steering member of DSA's Housing Justice Commission. And Sebastian, a member of North Carolina Triangle DSA, who works for the North Carolina Tenants Union and is also a member of DSA's Housing Justice Commission. Welcome, Kelly and Sebastian. Thank you. Hi.

SPEAKER_04 2:25

Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Of course. I'm gonna ask you the question we always ask to everyone who's new. How and why did you become a socialist? And how and why did you join DSA? Kelly, you want to take it away?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Sure. I grew up in a really conservative family. My family is very right-leaning. I was homeschooled as a child. I went away for college. I grew up in the East Coast in New Hampshire. And when I went away for college, was when I kind of started this journey away from what I had been brought up on and that sort of rhetoric. I went to a grad program out in Arizona where I became more radicalized by some of the issues out there, notably among the indigenous populations and some of the other issues that were happening on the college campus. When I moved back to New England, I moved to Boston, Massachusetts, and that's where I became more involved in political organizing. I went to a number of different left organization meetings before kind of settling into DSA and into tenant organizing. When I originally joined DSA, I wasn't very active. But once I started taking on a leadership role in the housing working group, I became much more invested in the work. And I've been in DSA for about three years now. And I would say that's been the vast majority of my radicalizing and socialist journey. Thanks. Sebastian?

SPEAKER_04 3:56

Well, I'm originally from Colombia, Bogota, Colombia. And so I, you know, socialism, communism, anything like that was scary, you know, but um I was always kind of a left liberal, um, you know, excited when Obama got elected. And then it was like, well, but what about Guantanamo, you know, and on and on. Yeah. And then um, you know, went to Occupy for my fall break. Um, I was studying economics because I wanted to do economic development, but I was kind of realizing like economic development is just for the people that support the US Empire, you know? And so um, yeah, I was like really into the whole like money and politics thing. Lawrence Lessig, if anybody knows who that is.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Oh my god. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:45

He's like a whole separate giant nerd about that.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

That's so funny. I have I have stories, not about him in particular, but about his work. But yes, please go on.

SPEAKER_04 4:56

Heck yes, heck yes. Well, um, yeah, it wasn't until 2016 that, you know, uh uh Bernie was just like, yeah, who has the money to put it into the politics, you know? And it's like, oh, rich people, you know, the 1%, all the, you know, all the stuff that we're talking about in Occupy. And so um around 2018, I heard about like a DSA meeting. And so I went as my friend's, you know, emotional support extrovert, um, and then got involved, helped do some fundraising, and dropped off for a few years, then went, you know, super deep into the Bernie campaign, texting while at work and all this stuff, helping with the Spanish texting um program. And then, yeah, eventually just came back to DSA trying to revive my branch, which had kind of fallen apart in 2021.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

Yeah, that's interesting. So you are someone who was like part of the through line between Occupy, the financial crisis, Obama, and Bernie. Because a lot of people, as you might imagine, got like Bernie, Bernie pilled. Um, but the actual connection, like not a lot of people necessarily were like around for all of that. For me, the uh the Obama years were also like the first time I had ever like phone banked, but I w I was never really very like politicized. It was kind of like this seems like a good idea and it seems historical. Um, but yeah, like it's kind of interesting how, well, organizing is really the thing that ends up being the spark for you too, Kelly, right? Where it's like you kind of encounter these ideas, and then once you actually are on the ground like doing these things is when it starts to stick more. That that's happened, that happened for me too. For you guys, like, you know, how did you find yourself drawn into tenant organizing in particular? And we'll talk also about like the sort of deeper questions about the theory of change that animates it and stuff, but just kind of to continue the elevator speech about socialism, like how did you end up focusing on this particular um area? Sebastian, maybe you could go first this time.

SPEAKER_04 7:17

Um yeah, well, I mean, you know, with the Bernie campaign, I knocked so many doors. Um, and if anybody's done electoral canvassing, you know the reception that you get at the door. Um and then what reception is that, Sebastian?

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Fully embraced, cup of tea?

SPEAKER_04 7:39

Well, especially in North Carolina, um, you know, uh the triangle is a little more progressive, but but so you know, it like I had that experience, and then in 2021, I'd seen uh a friend from the Bernie campaign was doing canvassing with Denver DSA around the eviction moratorium, um, because a lot of landlords were uh uh trying to evict tenants who couldn't pay, even though there was a moratorium, hoping they didn't know about it and that they would just leave on their own. Um and so, you know, it was like January of 2021. It was like a friend of mine from the Bernie campaign and another person who had been a member of the branch before, uh specifically in Raleigh, North Carolina, and we were just like, what if we do that? You know, we just go to the courthouse, we get all the evictions, we figure out the apartment complexes, and we just like knock every door in that apartment complex and tell everybody, hey, you have these rights. Um, you know, and so we just started doing that, that allowed us to kind of start to pull together a branch with like a specific, you know, tangible project. And then the people at the doors were like thrilled to see us, you know, even if they weren't going through it, they were always just like, oh, I know my friend, my cousin, like whoever, I need to tell them about this. And so um, unfortunately, I didn't know anything about organizing at the time. So I didn't get like people's contact information and stuff like that. We eventually started doing that, but um, you know, fortunately, um, some members of DSA in Chapel Hill were doing uh actual tenant union organizing thanks to an IWW member who had been running trainings there. Um, and so those of us in Raleigh kind of got interested in that. And then when the eviction moratorium ended, um, unfortunately, and there I should, you know, say a lot of thanks to Corey Bush who pushed to keep it going at the time. Um, but you know, when it ended, we just were like, all right, tenant unions are the way to go. Um, and actually that summer I had been uh basically forced out of my house because of mold problems. And if I'd known about tenant unions and tenant organizing, I think I could have pushed back on it, you know, and so like kind of it kind of hit at a lot of you know, a lot of different things were happening at that time that just like made it really stick with me. And um, you know, after that it was just yeah, tenant organizing all day, every day.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Thanks for that. I have uh, you know, something you just said at the end of what you just described. Also COVID was one of those things that kind of uncovered so many things, right? So uncovered so many like you know, denigrated and awful workplace conditions and other, you know, kind of social safety net things that frayed or had been fraying for a long time. Housing was one of them too. And I uh the housing activity that happened in my chapter at the time also kind of had its high point at that time with the eviction moratorium and like the exploitation that was going on, but then it attracted other people who were experiencing other issues as well. What about you, Kelly? It sounds like your trajectory was kind of like you were part of some other organizing and then you moved to another place and got really deep into tenant organizing.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

So yeah, I think like you had mentioned earlier um about how people get radicalized in the struggle. I think I that's really true that people learn the most when they're involved and engaged in it. I read a lot of theory, I love to read a lot of books. Um I'm applying for master's or for PhD programs now, so I consider myself to be an academic. But what's been most helpful for me or most um enlightening, I guess, is the actual on the grounds organizing. Um, I think like Sebastian was talking about, housing is personal to me. I've also had some housing insecurity and some just as like a you know poor person and working class person, um, just struggled with the cost of living and the rising rents. When I lived out in Arizona and was there for grad school, I remember reading um Evicted by Matthew Desmond, which catalogs the um housing crisis throughout the US. And that was a very dis depressing read for me. It's done through like a sociology standpoint. When I moved to Boston, I started reading Abolish Rent, and that was much more empowering. Evicted, you know, talked about the scope of the issue and how housing is so critical for our survival, how eviction causes PTSD, how millions of Americans are put out on the street. I that book gave me a lot of anxiety because I recognized myself and my situation and a lot of the people that Matthew Desmond was interviewing. Um, but then reading Abolished Rent and what tenants can do when they organize was really encouraging to me and uh motivating because I started to think that it doesn't have to be like this. Like I don't have to be afraid of losing my housing. And I think because I didn't get involved in DSA through an electoral campaign, my experience in DSA has always been tenant and housing organizing. That's just always been my orientation to DSA and to political organizing, is that housing is a you know a critical and human right. It's foundational for us to exist.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

So yeah, I mean, we're gonna talk a bit about that particular kind of central node of what it means to be working class, what it means to be um alive, really, like, and like what it means to have something like housing as a human right. Um but also I think that something people might want to know is what are some of the similarities and differences between like tenant organizing and other kinds of organizing. Um, Sebastian, you just mentioned like kind of maybe maybe you suggested more than actually explicitly said, like how refreshing it was to actually do tenant organizing after knocking doors kind of in this necessary but very kind of stayed way to get people to vote. Um, so the distinction between maybe speaking to people about their particular material issues and talking about organizing around them with people experiencing the same thing is different than electoral organizing because electoral organizing is asking people to believe in kind of more like a broader vision. Yes, candidates often champion certain kinds of things. That's how they distinguish themselves, or that's also how they speak to their own local constituencies, but it's almost never gonna be sort of singular, right? It's almost never gonna be around a single thing because you know who can get elected on that? I don't know, maybe we'll try. Who knows? But it is it is very different, right? Because you are going also to like specific places that you feel can be fruitful areas of organizing. It's not just like a canvas of a full place, it's like, okay, like identifying these particular places. So what is the theory of change that animates this particular kind of organizing? At least, you know, in your view, because I think there's also maybe a range of responses to that kind of question. Um, so yeah, Kelly, for you, like what do you think is the motivating factor? You mentioned how, again, refreshed you felt reading something that's like the collective power of tenants can actually do things that people are told is impossible, right? Or like people are told is like, you know, inevitably just a result of um, you know, the capitalist system. So yeah, please expound. Like, you know, what is the the theory of change that you that made you want to believe in this is something that is like a great focus for you.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Yeah, I think you touched on it a little bit with how different like electoral is to housing or tenant organizing. I think one of the main differences is that in electoral, you know, you're backing up a candidate and hoping that they'll come and help you or that they'll, you know, be good on their campaign promises. But with housing, it's so fundamental to your existence. And I was talking to one of the public housing tenants that I've been organizing with for the past several months now. Um, and I told her, I was like, your landlord wants an easy paycheck. These people just want an easy paycheck. They're exploiting you for this money.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

But you have income is what they call it.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

What?

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Passive income.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yes, housing providers. But I was like, these landlords and these corporations, they just want an easy paycheck, but we need the house to live. So if the fight's gonna get ugly, we're fighting for life or death, and they're fighting because they want passive income. Um, and I think that is a big difference with tenant organizing and what really can motivate people to take on militant action. We see this across the country in a lot of tenant groups. Um, and I think as Sebastian talked about earlier with eviction defense campaigns, we also have one in Boston, and that has been really um, it's helped our you know organization grow and our working group grow because that is a moment where people are up against the wall and they don't have a lot of options. They can't afford to wait around for the next election cycle or for the state to get involved. They have to do something now, and that is what brings them to talking to their neighbors and to taking these risks together in solidarity. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:21

Yeah. I mean, I think for for me, it was um a little bit like sort of instinctually, you know, I I saw how like just 40% of people, give or take, don't vote, you know, um, and how like yeah, just everybody is is so depoliticized, right? Like uh uh uh people don't really see how they themselves right, like uh uh uh how they can make the change themselves, right? Even sometimes with voting, right? If it's voting where, oh, I'm gonna pick this person and this person's gonna solve the problem for me, that's still pretty depoliticized, right? Like that's still pretty like, oh, I'm just like choosing and then I'm you know leaving. And so um, you know, with tenant organizing, you're you're helping people realize their own power, right? And you're you're helping people kind of like see that um even though my landlord has like tons and tons of money, he's still leveraged up to his guilds, right? And so it's it it doesn't take that many of us to stop paying for him to be the one in trouble. And so really what we're doing is we're paying for him to have a good life. Like we're not like uh he's not doing something for us out of the kindness of his heart. And so um, you know, to me, like tenant organizing, you know, one addresses kind of that that issue of like helping people realize their own personal like power. Um, but then also the the the demographics that that it addresses are just so different from electoral and labor organizing. Um, at least for us.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

I could ask you about the labor part because it sounds like there's a a sort of chiming with what a lot of um organizers, especially within DSA, but even people who are not identified socialists, like why they're involved in union organizing, because it empowers workers to find their own individual as well as collective power. So maybe you could talk a little bit more about what the differences between because we can, you know, electoral also is kind of classically in its own. We have we have elections, we have can uh candidates, and it's like very much what most people think of when they think of politics, right? But you know, labor also is now becoming more politicized, but tenant organizing might not have the same um attention drawn into it, despite the fact that we also are facing a housing crisis on many fronts, uh, rent, you know, um development, that kind of thing. So, yeah, please explain what's the difference between tenant organizing and labor organizing, and also maybe what are like some similarities that you think are like fruitful to maybe talk about.

SPEAKER_04 20:22

I mean, the the similarities are so many, you know. Uh we really owe a lot to labor organizing and labor organizers. We've gone through, you know, I've gone through so many labor organizing trainings, uh, organizing for power and ewok and you know, um, that have been very helpful to me in the organizing, you know, that I've been doing. Um, at the same time, you know, I would say a the really, really big one um is in labor, there's a big emphasis on organic leaders uh and finding the organic leaders, um, which is a challenge for us because at work you can you can you know you're performing tasks together, you're demonstrating competency, you are right, like uh creating the ability to like talk to each other, even if you speak different languages, at the very least, you develop enough to like uh uh uh do the work that needs to be done, and then from there you can, you know, go forward. Whereas when you're neighbors, like you might not know each other at all, and you've lived next to each other for years, right? You just sort of wave and you keep it moving. Um, and so it's very rare to find a um, you know, just like a natural leader who already knows, right? Like everybody in the apartment complex. Sometimes, you know, um, it can happen with parents, parents who like take their kids to the same local park or like pet owners, dogs that go to the same, you know, dog park.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

But but the dogs become the organic leader? Is that what you're saying? Oh my god, chakra.

SPEAKER_04 22:03

They also vote. They also get a vote.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Don't tell the Trump administration that there's voter fraud going on where people are registering their dogs to vote.

SPEAKER_04 22:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Sorry, sorry. Come on. No, I just couldn't, I couldn't resist.

SPEAKER_04 22:22

Um it's but but so it's just like it's just tough. It's tough to find those organic leaders. And so um there's I think I feel that there's like more of a need for like uh um leadership development and and and that that sort of thing. Um I would also say that at least in North Carolina, where we don't have a lot of like uh um protections for tenants and we don't have a lot of um uh history of of labor or tenant unions, um it's it's we've found that there a lot of times it's people that live in subsidized housing who quite literally could not afford to live in the city anywhere else other than where they live, who are the most uh likely to get involved and to like uh um you know and to organize. And so I guess I would say that like the demographics are also pretty different in terms of like um you have these two big you know swaths of like retired folks and people on like a fixed income. Um, and then also uh quite people who are quite young who are living in like very precarious situations as they you know leave their home and like try and like face the the the world. Often, you know, um LGBTQ plus folks who maybe their family is not supportive, right? Um, especially like uh yeah, who who who may be having that to deal with that sort of situation. Uh, those are kind of like, I guess, you know, uh the younger folks are you know unionizing in labor and in tenant stuff, but like for the older folks who are retired and that kind of thing, I think this is a a way to reach um people in those situations that that we wouldn't normally with like labor organizing. Um I guess, yeah, those are some of the some of the differences I see.

unknown 24:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Yeah, I mean, they there's a reason why they say class struggle is life or death. We see the same thing in Boston too. It's people that don't have anywhere else to go that that have to stay and fight. I think a lot of times when you run into issues in the workplace, um the advice is to get a better job. But when you run into issues with your housing, it's a little bit different. There's not as many options. I think um a big difference with labor and housing and tenant organizing is that there is kind of a guidance or like kind of a path for labor organizing. There's, you know, the national labor boards and different established unions. There's kind of a template for labor organizers to follow, and there is a precedent and some kind of, you know, federal protection around labor organizing. There's much less of that with housing. And again, I think that people feel a little less afraid to lose their job, as much as that can be devastating for people. There are systems like unemployment, um, you know, people are able to find a new job, but losing one's housing and facing an eviction can be really devastating. So, some of the things that we do with tenant organizing is one of the reasons why that eviction defense campaign is so important, is that's a piece of political education. Eviction is the main way that landlords will retaliate against tenant organizers. So if tenant organizers know how to fight back against an eviction, they can continue to escalate and take on more militant action. So I think with tenant organizing, there needs to be a lot more of this mutual aid and infrastructure built out, especially as we're getting people to develop a level of trust with each other. Sebastian touched upon how you might not even know your neighbors. I've lived in places where I never saw my neighbors. We had different schedules, um, we've never really passed each other in the hallways. So, and so you don't always get those organic leaderships, which is what DSA's role is, is bringing this type of tenant organizing, these e-talk trainings into that space and getting the tenants together, um, having these types of social events, getting people to talk about these issues so that they can realize that they're not alone in these issues, that their neighbors are facing the same issues, and that there is a way forward if they work together.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Yeah, what you were just both talking about regarding knowing your neighbors, I think that the knowing your neighbors thing is almost something that is often reserved for property owners. Because it's like, oh, well, we have a stake in the neighborhood. We have a community here, and that's really played up. I mean, we know what the HOA is, right? The ever-cursed HOA jokes that, you know, circulate around the internet. But renters are also precarious, right? They're people who could be evicted, even if they've lived in a place for a really long time, because of course we have all these other external pressures like development, like um, you know, the BlackRock motherfuckers, you know, like all of that, all of that, too, that's like creating all this external pressure on people. And like, yeah, like if you were living in a place where you might feel like you're not sure if you're gonna be there for a while. I mean, not everyone is transient. And I think that's another part of this, too, is like the sort of classed nature of the.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

A lot of people are transient these days.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

Yes, a lot of people are, but I just mean also like even if you're you have more housing security than someone else, you might also just kind of be to yourself, right? Also, in the United States, we have this um norm where your house, even if it's not yours, right, even if you're paying a landlord, you have a right to the privacy of your own home. And I think that a lot of people might be socialized into thinking, oh, well, I don't really want a person to talk to me and invade my privacy, so I'm not gonna do it to them. And so it might also be this kind of like generalized atomization that people have in a culture of like sort of capital private property by proxy, right? It's like you're paying the landlord a fee, an exorbitant fee, to be able to try to enjoy some of that privacy, you know, and it's like a very, you know, sort of immiserated privacy in reality.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 28:32

I mean, so many. Uh um, there's a a person that I'm working with right now who is convinced that you know, maintenance is coming into his apartment while he's not there and that other tenants are in on it. And it's just like this is tough. Like, how how to build that trust so that eventually you feel like it's you and your neighbors against the landlord, you know? Uh um, it's it's it's tricky.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Yeah, I mean it's oh sorry, go ahead, Kelly.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

I was gonna say, I think people it's sometimes with tenant organizing, it's difficult because people will get upset at their neighbors or the people around them. It's hard to be angry at a system. It's much easier to be angry at a person that's in front of you. And a lot of times these landlords are hiding behind LLCs or corporations or property management. So they're never face to face. You can never really yell at them, but you could yell at your neighbor or something. Um, they take on that representation of the system's oppression.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Yeah, which is also very similar in the workplace. That's another similarity for labor. Of course, you know, capital tends to divide people, right? That's how it's, you know, divide and conquer. And it makes sense that it would happen everywhere. There's a commodity to be exploited, right? Um, whether it's labor, whether it's someone's actual actual money and their desperation to stay, have some measure of security, which in the United States we associate strongly with the ability to exclude, right? Like this idea that private property attaches itself to the ability to be left alone. And then it's just painful, I think, sometimes to realize like, as long as you're under the thumb of capital and landlords, you will never be really left alone, right? Um, this is like a big part of the ruling class kind of structure that we're we're under currently, is there are people who own, you know, there are people who actually have like an unfettered right to exclude, including right to exclude their tenants, should they choose, right? Um, and all of the different ways that tenant landlord law works on municipal, state, federal, even though it's not really federal levels, but like these agencies, it's just a patchwork, right? Like there's so there's it's almost like whack-a-mole, like every single, every single thing like kind of cancels each other out in like all of these different ways. But the legislative path is also something that people will often kind of like go for as a way to mitigate some of these issues. So I want to talk to you guys about like how that fits into tenant organizing, because these things like rent control, zoning for housing, bans on Airbnb, these things kind of come up in all of these different ways. And they're not uniform, right? Um, they're they kind of like appear in um, you know, on the basis of political conditions that aren't you know necessarily predictable, but people do um engage in those campaigns oftentimes um not as an alternative to tenant organizing, but in the absence of tenant organizing. Um, and so I'm wondering, you know, in your experience and kind of in your analysis of how this theory of change kind of you know coalesces, are these kinds of campaigns totally distinct from tenant organizing? Um, do they kind of fit to it? Is there a future where they could fit? Um, or you know, what's your view on like some of these other efforts that that are alternatives to or happen alongside um maybe more grassroots organizing that you've been describing?

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yeah, I if I could uh respond.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

Yeah, Kelly, go ahead. Glad you're so eager to answer.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Um I think something that you you brought up too about how um, you know, homeownership versus renting, a lot of why we're not seeing any protections around tenants is that it is really seen as just a temporary living situation. The end goal for a lot of people is to eventually own a home. You know, we think about the nuclear family type model that's always championed in the US. And that's not really the goal of us as socialists. So it's not about, you know, building up towards home ownership. It's about building up towards this form of social housing that we talk about in the Housing Justice Commission. But to your question about these legislative pieces, they do tie, in my opinion. They tie into the tenant organizing. A lot of what my role as the housing working group co-chair was was about using those as political education pieces, around getting people to see that this is not a system that needs to be continued, that it's not a system that should exist. So we did campaigns around tenant-paid broker fees. That that's a thing in Boston, was a thing in Boston, um, that landlords could charge the tenants for broker service that the landlord used. That was an easy low-lift pressure campaign that we helped on. And even though you know some people will say that those types of measures are more reformist, it's all about getting people to continue that conversation of yes, it's messed up that your landlord is charging you for a service they use. And it's messed up that your landlord's charging you rent at all. So everything is a step building up towards this form of social housing. You know, we say housing is a human right, and that's true, but that's a slogan. How do we get there? And so we need tenant organizing, and then we need tenant protections and these legislative pieces to change the conversation around what housing actually looks like.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

Yeah, the way the way that I think about it is sort of like um, you know, using the Pro Act as an example, like, you know, you wouldn't necessarily say that the Pro Act is labor organizing. I guess maybe, you know, some folks would, but like if you're doing it inside of your union, maybe, but if you're sort of like generally uh um, you know, getting people to sign off.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

It's a basic it's basically an electoral campaign, right?

SPEAKER_04 34:30

You know, yeah, yeah. Like electoral legislative, and but it affects labor, right? Like it makes it easier to organize. And so kind of how I think about it is like um there are a good example in South Carolina, um, they recently passed a law to um, I believe you're if you are evicted, um, the eviction can only stay on your record up to seven years. Um which, you know, for tenant organizing, I mean seven years is still like entirely. Um but it used to be permanent, right? And and I think in North Carolina it it still is. Um there's some caveats that are. Exactly. And so and so these are these are legislative changes that then make it so when you're having conversations about like, should we take this action and all that stuff, like I mean, you're never gonna say, like, oh, don't worry, it's only gonna be seven, it's only gonna be on your record for seven years if you get eviction. You know, but like it's something that um people are gonna put into their like decision-making, you know, process, right? And people are gonna say, like, okay, like I have this fallback, or you know, I don't, you know, like, and so, and so I think um something that was interesting. I went to this talk by the Madrid Tenants Union um uh and the Catalan Tenants Union, and they talked about how the legislative wins came out of like, you know, tenant fights. And so I think that that's kind of maybe how we need to think about it, and how it would encourage DSA chapters to like uh approach this is like thinking about what helps your tenant union grow. Like what are like the changes that would make it easier for tenants to fight. Um, because I think if we can make those changes, then then maybe those really are like non-reformist reforms, right? Um and so, and so you know, I'm not opposed to them. I think, you know, uh it can be a good way to cohere like a housing justice working group and like a chapter or something like that. But I do think that like there does come a point where um tenants need to be able to like fight for themselves. And and I think that that can that should happen through like, you know, autonomous tenant unions that can like um really uh uh uh take that sort of militant action with, you know, ideally the support of their their local DSA chapter.

SPEAKER_02 37:11

Okay, and there's a lot there because one of the things that I noticed you squeezed in there was this idea that a tenant union um that is able to kind of maybe have a little bit of extra extra thought in their head, besides just like survival, could potentially be um a site, an or an organizing site unto itself where people can decide what kind of politicization they want to undertake. And it to me that sounds a lot like what a rank and file strategy within labor might try to kind of lean on, is like if you have a militant union, then the militant union and the leadership that comes out of that could help to organize campaigns that actually do attack um injustice in the halls of power rather than just doing kind of only workplace-bounded um kinds of organizing. That might that was how I read it, and maybe you guys can talk, tell me whether I'm all wet or not, but that just really rang true, especially because I used to live in Massachusetts, uh Kelly, and um I know a lot of people involved in the Massachusetts Teachers Association and especially EDU, Educators for a Democratic Union. And leadership within um MTA has been kind of the rank and file militant leadership. And recently they have been starting to generate their own statewide campaigns that have been um agitational, really. I mean, they've been both agitational and they've also um, you know, sort of caused a politicization around labor and around labor issues that uh people had previously kind of siloed off as like, oh, that's just union stuff. Like, we don't need to like worry about that too much.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Yeah, I mean, we've had conversations around this in the Housing Justice Commission about how we can get tenant unions to look beyond building level issues and start thinking about you know this question around housing and how we can change the way housing's viewed. We don't like housing shouldn't be on the speculative market, it shouldn't be a vehicle for investment. Same thing with labor, getting them to look beyond workplace issues to actually changing the system.

SPEAKER_04 39:34

Yeah, I mean, uh um I think maybe because the the tenant movement is so embryonic right now, we've kind of defaulted to the like rank and file strategy, right? Of like, well, we're just gonna have to go and build these, you know, tenant unions um so that they can eventually take those sorts of uh of actions. And um, I think there's been some pretty now like certain unions have gotten to a size of like um you know, Los Angeles tenants union uh arguing for an eviction moratorium during the Ice Rates there because so many people were being displaced because they couldn't go to work, you know. Um like uh uh and like that. There's I think examples in in many other like situations and you know things like that, but like um they are now like there are now unions that can go beyond that sort of like yeah, what my housing looks like and and and uh take action against the state and against like state oppression. Um that is just very heartening to see.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

Yeah, I mean it the the good old class in itself versus class for itself, because the class in itself worries about those like you know common grievances kind of insular insular and necessary in order to agitate to cause people to think about themselves as part of a broader class struggle, you know, with those people that they've never even met before. And like the the that kind of like stepping stone. And the thing is, as a for socialists, we're also like we're also embryonic in a lot of ways. Like we're constantly being kind of put back on these things by harder territory. These kinds of organizing efforts are they're never just local, right? It's like the they they they take part in a broader um conception. And even if people don't realize it at the time, the way that people become realized is through that activity, at that that self-activity, right? And the and the meeting of people and the talking to people about their common grievances in order to be able to realize one day it's like, no, I actually do believe housing is a human right. Like that, like that's something I believe in my heart. Not it's not just a slogan, right? And I want to like work towards that, you know, in some in some way, even if it's just creating the best gosh darn tenant union you possibly can, right?

SPEAKER_04 42:09

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

Yeah. I wanted to talk to you guys actually about the housing plank in our new Workers Deserve More program that's been released last week. Um, and I'll just read it out loud and maybe we can just talk a little bit about it. Um, and like you just mentioned, Sebastian, about DSA chapters being supports and um involved in in these kinds of efforts. And obviously, both of you are involved in the Housing Justice Commission, your own local organizing and and all of that connected to DSA. But we now have um a new program that defines housing as a human right. First sentence build new publicly owned social housing, strictly regulate investment properties, establish universal rent control, and guarantee right to counsel for all tenants. It's very succinct, it's very brief, but uh I'd love to hear y'all's thoughts about it. Um, and also kind of like how you see organizing potentially taking place around these things.

SPEAKER_04 43:11

I mean, just starting with like housing as a human right, I think is like uh uh um right something that we can all absolutely agree on. Um and I think this takes some steps towards that, right? Like I feel like uh universal rent control would be very nice. Uh it's actually illegal in North Carolina to have rent control.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

It's illegal in Massachusetts.

SPEAKER_02 43:34

It sure is. And uh an effort to just try to put a dent in that just failed.

SPEAKER_00 43:39

Um I'm aware it's very involved in that campaign.

SPEAKER_03 43:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:45

Go ahead, Sebastian.

SPEAKER_04 43:47

Well, it was it was a Democrat who passed that law in North Carolina, you know. Uh uh. So we're like we're just like so far away from you know having a a a housing system that. makes any sense at all. You know, and so I think that like this takes a lot of like good there it includes a lot of good policies um in getting us towards that. You know, I think I'm I'm also sort of informed by like the four principles of social housing that the Housing Justice Commission passed a few years ago, which just you know includes like redistribution from landowners, democratic control, sustainable and high quality housing, and then universal access. And so you know kind of thinking about these two, I'm thinking I'm wondering about like, you know, and obviously this is a thing that is like ongoing, right? It's not like a set it and forget it. You know, something around like tenant control, tenant democracy. And just in in terms of like um yeah starting to think about like not just the the the physical like units of housing themselves but also like the relationship that we have to them could be like a thing to to include in the future. But um yeah I mean I think I think uh uh um it's something that we need to work on it's something that like it's extremely important to a lot of people and I think that you know this is like a good good start yeah I also really like that uh we have a housing plank and the workers deserve more and I also like that it goes a little bit beyond that housing is a human right which I agree with but is more of just a slogan so I love that it expands a little bit into what that looks like and what we really think housing should be.

SPEAKER_00 45:40

The investment properties that's something that comes up a lot right now in Boston we're organizing around social housing in part of our areas is Cambridge, Massachusetts so we're working on a social housing campaign and um something that we talk about a lot is how housing when it's used as a vehicle for investment, it's fundamentally at odds with what housing actually is critical to our survival. And so as Sebastian said, you know, how can we build policies and how can we build a system of housing that transforms the relationship we have with housing. I think a lot of us as working class and as tenants are kind of at the whim of landlords and you know if we're college students, the dorms, we don't have a lot of autonomy or agency over our housing if you rent, you can't paint the walls, you don't know if you'll stay there for long, your housing could be taken away from you at any moment. So those are all things that regardless of what the house itself looks like, what is our relationship to that? And then again, you know people who are radicalized in the struggle this is also a form of political education. So when we're thinking about these policies as part of this workers deserve more platform, including the tenants in this conversation of building out these policies and building out what social housing actually looks like how we're going to get universal rent control and and what a right to counsel looks like for tenants all of those are things that having militant tenant unions involved in will help make those campaigns successful yeah and I also think that like the plank itself is like it's just succinct because it's like to make it longer you'd have to then create like a white paper trail.

SPEAKER_02 47:26

You know and we we really I I was the co-chair of the program committee and one thing that we really needed to not do is just turn it into the um completely unusable platform from 2021 that was 9,000 words long and nobody liked because it had too much stuff in it, right? So one thing that I'm kind of wondering about actually is another plank which is economic democracy establishing public ownership of dot dot dot essential industries. Because one of the things that I was recently on another uh podcast one of the things that I brought up was we're not trying to this was not this is not like a polic like a wonk policy institute. Like we're a mass political organization. So making these things pretty succinct is important. But also what is an essential industry is actually something that needs to be decided not just like by some guy who's wearing a bow tie and just like here's the list of essential industries but how actually it fits into production and how it fits into people's material needs, right? An essential industry is what is it right now that's being commodified that needs to be taken out of the market in order for people to be able to live housing is one of them definitely housing and and investment properties is the the the sort of complete commodification and like you said before Kelly it's like it kind of stands in complete opposition to the purpose of housing which is to house people because they need housing to live right so to the extent that we're talking here about a kind of broader scope like what do you guys think about that not to say like oh well we don't need it in this because we have it over here but I just like kind of triggered me thinking about that because socialists we kind of understand that the things we need to live must not be in the market right but capital wants us to think oh well it's okay if it's in the market as long as the price point is right and as long as you know people are able to aspire to potentially like owning something right housing I think we can we can agree even if you're listening to this and maybe you're not a socialist or you're you're just sitting here gnashing your teeth maybe you're a landlord I don't know like if landlords are listening you'll learn something here but but I gotta keep in reality like right now housing is one of those essential needed things that has been so commodified even if people are not you know we're we're not talking here about like the massive BlackRock or like these or the Kushners or any of these groups but it is just like considered now to be a a commodity right and and so much of this is about taking housing out of um the market in order to turn them into to investment properties and flip them. But it's also about hoarding right and it's and it's about like you know kind of this like almost like accumulation. It's just like how much housing does anyone really even need and so I guess maybe I'd like to hear what you're saying because I'm a little I'm wandering a little bit here but like this kind of idea that like housing being an essential industry and being democratized such that it actually is like solidly within public ownership having these tenant unions being able to participate and like how to make that come about I don't know I mean thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 51:00

Yeah I mean I think that having the platform be succinct is very helpful because it gives people room to explore like how's this you know workers deserve more plank is really helpful to lay the foundation and then different working groups and different tenant unions can build out these campaigns using this as a foundation. But going back to that essential industries housing is obviously something that is essential to us as the working class. And so having tenant unions involved in this site and having tenants involved because these are the people that need the housing to live a landlord that owns you know a million units and is just hoarding them to continue driving up rent prices doesn't need the unit to live. So they're not going to be making these decisions around what housing should look like what our relationship to housing should look like under the basis that it's a human right. They're looking at it under the basis that this is something that can make them money. And I think a lot of times when you know under this current system of capitalism people aspire to get into the position of the oppressor rather than you know to achieve liberation for themselves and for their community.

SPEAKER_04 52:08

So people see if they're tenants, they believe that the pathway forward is to become a homeowner or eventually become a landlord if if they are an exploited worker their path to you know stability is to become a business owner whereas we as socialists we're looking for liberation and not to take the place of the oppressors there's there's a there's a horrific like confluence uh uh around that right now with landlord influencers oh are you talking about people who get on Instagram and whine about how they try so hard and the the uh the implementers on Instagram it's about it's about no it's a it's about how like you too can become like you too can make passive income by buy buying like distressed you know assets and da da da da da and so like you buy this in section eight you have like a high you have like a steady income you don't you know do anything and so it's just free cash and it's just it's like it's really they're awful they're awful uh um it's yeah but but so part of it is it's kind of like in the same vein as crypto or any other kind of hack you know that people feel so desperate honestly that they're looking for any way to sort of hack because the hack is the way that you get around the actual material constraints right and it's all snake oil right it's all it's all kind of like no the reason why you were able to and of course you always see these articles too the kind of highbrow version of this too is like the New York Times articles where it's just like they were able to buy an apartment on the upper west side on uh two nonprofit incomes or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 53:58

And then like about three paragraphs in you find out that they just inherited like a million dollars from their dead uncle or something like that. Yeah so I love those yeah I mean I think that going back to what you were saying Kelly about just the um the sort of hierarchical like people feeling like getting out of it requires them to become the oppressor um and not seeing their way out through collective action is something I think that obviously the socialist in this the socialist in this room and also the sort socialist movement is trying to change through the activities of organizing, right? Like they're trying to like persuade people to our political positions through different tools such as workers deserve more such as you know the electeds like being um you know imperfect but nonetheless we're stuck with them tribunes for the movement. But then also this actual organizing that we're doing in labor in tenant tenancy um and in other areas too immigration um you know various other areas DSA big tent lots and lots of different things going on which is why workers has a lot of planks you know um and the the way that I see it too is that like our own vision of reality is it's based on what we understand to be like the material needs of human beings, right? But we look at that and this is not a virtuous thing this is not necessarily a moral thing it's just a material analysis we look at that as how we are able to help people understand their position in in the world right and the oppressed oppressor thing also is like well if those are the only two choices of course I don't want to be the oppressed I want to be the oppressor we have to actually show people no this is not permanent because capitalism was made by people like it's made it's and so we can actually re we can do other things as people besides just sit here and say, well I guess we're stuck you know either in the oppressed or the oppressor. We obviously want to get rid of those two categories altogether. Yeah the socialist agenda is about imagining a better world and making that possible yeah and imagining a better world that isn't actually that far different from the one that we would live in if we got to like actually be free of these kinds of constraints. Another thing not to you know overly focus on the program but another thing that's been happening over the last week since we released it is a lot of like right wing outrage machine up over around it and they've they focused on a a bunch of stuff. They focused on me they focused on abolishing the Senate but they've also focused a lot on the beginning of the program which is a clearly a fiction in order to get people to think what would it be like to have a day off in a future without capitalism right it's it's clearly meant to take people out of reality and have them imagine something different. But one of the things that is talked about in here is um is housing because it's like foo you know um you don't pay a mortgage or have a landlord because comfortable housing is a human right and then we don't know what in the future it'll look like to have housing in this thing. We just know that there's not going to be capitalism. So there's not going to be a mortgage and there's not going to be a landlord so we know that those things those two things don't exist right um and then also together. Yeah we're figuring out together so that's why the platform is more succinct now as a result yeah and and one of the things too is that like can you imagine a world where you don't have to worry about paying rent at the end of the month that you can just live in your house you know you can live with comfortable housing it's like actually something that I think a lot of people wouldn't think of on their own right like you know because having to pay for where you live in this very um obvious way where it's like yeah there's a landlord and I have to pay him every month in order for me not to be kicked out. And what tenant organizing does is it helps people imagine like what would be like if you disrupted that like kind of normalization.

SPEAKER_04 58:31

And and you know it's even because I feel like we do you know in a way we do think about it right like I rent I've been here for like a a number of years uh the landlord is like not you know super around like I'm I might be able to stay here for a while but I don't think I can start beekeeping you know because I'm pretty sure that at some point I'm gonna have to move but I would love to you know like I see I go to this like festival where like every year there's like a beekeeper there and I'm just like this is so awesome.

SPEAKER_02 59:06

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_04 59:07

Today we learned that Sebastian is a secret beef if I if I didn't have to you know if I didn't have to pay rent if I knew that I would be able to stay here. And so it's just like like we think about these things on a regular basis but nobody or or very rarely does somebody come by and ask us that. You know and so I think that that is kind of the process of like the tenant organizing is just like what would you do if you didn't have to pay rent to be able to stay here you know and so like I guess I'm thinking about the very concrete way in which it like pulls those thoughts out of us and allows us to like say them out loud and to imagine them because it's just like it would be awesome you know and and one of the things that we actually often see in in apartments is people will bring up like oh it would be great to have a community garden you know like uh it's like more often than not people uh bring that up and so like yeah uh uh um we I feel like we are regularly thinking about what it would be like and I love that part I love the you know when I was reading through it I was like this is so great um but uh just gotta just gotta get more people thinking about it you know for sure and people feeling like they can take some kind of action to get them closer to that too.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:25

Sorry go ahead Kelly oh I mean it's like with the whole apartment renting the internet is like you're paying to live there and you still don't have complete agency over it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:36

Yeah and a lot of times too like you get these leases that actually have a ton of unenforceable stuff in there but they're because it's handed to you and because you signed it it's given the impression like oh yeah I I'm not allowed to wear shoes inside of my own house. Like that that actually came up I've I've even though housing isn't my main area of organizing um I've taught like undergraduate kind of like legal theory legal like social theory that kind of stuff and talked about leases because there's also this like sense of like oh like everything in a lease like if you break that rule then you're gonna get in trouble. And it's like really you really think that you're not allowed to play a wind instrument in your own apartment?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:22

So like this is also one of those things where it's like what do people actually think not just is enforceable but what like power do people just kind of think landlords have and like what would it mean to actually confront that and take that back in like a material substantial way. I think there's like a really something that yeah like you said Sebastian people might think oh I really wish I could be keep but a lot of times people are just like I guess that's my life you know oh I get I'm not allowed to be a beekeeper. What what what would it be like if everyone who wanted to be a beekeeper kept bees I feel like that would just be net benefit for all of society. And we'd be getting stung a lot more probably great for the flowers and everything though I'm sure oh definitely yeah it's like it would be it would be just great for everyone um maybe they wouldn't even sting us because they would just be like you don't matter to us we have our own society like we're not even paying attention to you people they would just outnumber us just to such a huge extent um well before we stop today I just wanted to remind everyone that the reason why we're having this now is because there is an e talk training on August 8th and ETOK is the emergency tenant organizing commission or committee. Committee okay so let's talk a bit about e talk and how it came about obviously there's a resonance and a copy of Ewok which is the emergency workplace organizing committee that came about during COVID and is now like a really big part of like kind of one of the crown jewels I would say of DSA's tenant organizing um and or sorry it's one of the crown jewels of DSA's labor organizing.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:03

So talk a little bit about the history of E talk um how it came about and what do you do in e talk um yeah so so e talk started I believe 2021 if not that then 2022 um and it's kind of gone through three different phases um at first it was very focused on getting a a specific group of people like in a chapter to go through a uh weekend training on how to do tenant organizing and how to start a tenant union um and that was able to see like a number of tenant unions um but it became very difficult to find the groups um and so then we went through a period uh around 2020 I want to say 24 where we focused more on rather than having like everybody come to the same weekend training just if you get together a group of people we will like put you through the training and then we will mentor you you know afterwards um there's also a mentorship component um and we we noticed that that didn't you know being able to separate so that you're not like on the same weekend still ran into that bottleneck of finding the group of people um and so you know like like you mentioned right like Ewok we're sort of the like little brother that's like notice me notice me like you know can we play?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:40

Yeah Ewok's Ewok's like the cool senior and you're like the like nerdy like freshman just being like there money said we can use the Xbox.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:49

We're gonna be as cool as Ewok soon.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:52

We're working on it because so so kind of what we saw and what we realized is um you know Ewok just does their trainings on like a certain cadence and it's just kind of open to anybody and everybody right and so what it has shifted into is this this model where um so once a season we hold a training it lasts for four weeks two hours each week um and we go through sort of like the theory of change what are the nuts and bolts of like organizing and organizing campaigns and then like um you know maybe uh at the end we talk a little bit more about like how to start a tenant union and so uh what we found was that we started to get not just people who were looking to start tenant unions but people who are already in them that were looking to get like a better uh uh base understanding of like what was involved and so um it made it much easier to find like just uh people to go through the training and now uh um People that have gone through it previously are starting to create their own cohorts to go through it. And so we still have that mentorship aspect where if you go through it with I think it's three at least three people together, then we'll pair you with a mentor. Um and yeah, I mean it's it's I so I went through it locally when we started the the triangle tenant union back in 2022. Um we went through it as a group, and you know, it just like totally changed how like like it just made me understand, helped me understand like uh more of why I why I was doing these things, right? Like I I was learning the how, but like the why it just helped with that, and that kind of allowed us to get like uh uh more direction on you know where should we go organize and like why should we organize there and that kind of thing. And so um, you know, it's just been it's been great to help, you know, make it happen. And um, it's been great to like meet so many people from around the country who are like interested in these things, and so you know, I would say even somebody that like may not be doing tenant organizing but under wants to understand tenant unions, like this is a pretty good way uh to do that. And and the next one, well, Kelly maybe wants to talk more about when the next one is because it's Saturday.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:30

He's almost as passionate about ewak or e-talk as he is about bees. Almost, but not quite.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:41

I just gotta break into, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:48

Sure. I think the main point of e-talk is helping people to realize that landlords actually don't have as much power as we think they do. And this actually is something that we can fight back against and we can make housing a better system for us or the people that live in it.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:03

Yeah, and it's also just good for people, even would you say even people who aren't sure whether they can or should form a tenant union to join the co like join up and do this. Cause when I um when Ewok first started, I went through some of them. I wasn't able to finish the whole thing, but you know, I got I started doing labor organizing, and that's how I became a socialist. So it was through labor organizing. And when Ewok came about, it was definitely kind of everyone. It was people who were definitely on the verge of like forming some kind of um like organizing committee, and then people who were like, I'm not really sure. I just think there's something wrong, and I I would like to find out more. And would you say that e talk is kind of the same? Like anyone can kind of sign up and you know find out more about whether you're ready.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:52

Right. You don't have to be, you know, on the verge of starting a tenants union. Some of the big tenant organizing projects that we have in Boston, they require a lot of assistance. I mean, we talked about it earlier how a lot of the tenants that are down to organize and down to fight are those that are living in subsidized housing or public housing, and how we need really strong mutual aid networks. So having people that can do tenant organizing and can help with those campaigns, um, you know, we always need more help canvassing, doing rallies, doing mutual aid work, all of those things that going through eTalk will help set members or set people up to. So even if they are just curious about housing work or they're curious about tenant organizing, um, or they want to get more involved in doing housing and tenant organizing in their GSA chapter, eTalk is a great launching point for that.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:42

Great. Awesome. And it sounds like there's also a sort of train the trainer component too, similar to ewok, where if someone goes through e-talk, then they could be future e-talk facilitator or something like that, which is always the beautiful thing about social uh like socialist trainings, right? It's like, oh, you went through this, now you get to do some of the work too.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:03

You know, just rotate in and out, right? Please do.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:07

Please, please. And also maybe say a word about the Housing Justice Commission. It's an open commission in DSA, so doesn't that mean that you're taking rolling uh applications and and it's an open commission so long as you're involved in housing in some way? Maybe you could say just a quick little snippet about that.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:26

Um yeah, I mean, so so anybody can join. Um there is a form on our website that you can fill out and so you'll start. Uh yes, thank you. Um, and then something that we are testing out right now is the um the uh what is the name of it? Are you thinking about the liaisons?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:49

Oh, the liaisons.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so the idea is to have a liaison at the chapter level and at the tenant union level so that I mean right now it's just like very like uh uh um if you can just get e-talk into the like chapter newsletter, right, to be to allow us to reach a wider audience or into your tenant union newsletter, right, and to recruit people from you know the formation you're in to the training, um, that would be incredible. Um, and then if you want that to be like more, the idea is that the liaisons will meet once a month with the steering committee um to to to yeah, discuss, hear more about what's going on locally and kind of help to steer the ship more.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:39

Just to clarify, the how the the ten the lay liaison connects the housing justice commission on the national level to both tenant unions and chapters.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:50

Okay, just to make sure I got the triangulation there correctly.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:53

Yeah, I'm really excited about the liaison program because I think that it's a great way to keep DSA, you know, DSA always tends to kind of go towards electoral campaigns. So I think that the liaison program is something that really helps to keep DSA nationally and and the chapters rooted in tenant organizing.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:11

Yeah. I mean, DA DSA is our party, right? And like, you know, the model for our party should be that we're more like a party in other countries where there's a lot of stuff going on and and and not just like getting people elected. In the United States, of course, this is the only way that people get to experience democracy by and large, you know, and a very impoverished kind of version of it. But it sounds to me like there's just a lot of growth, um, to use that you know kind of org phrase, growth in the tenant union space um that uh people should plug into.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:52

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:53

Yeah, thanks, Kelly and Sebastian. Thanks so much for having us. Thanks as always to our guests and our production crew, Emma, Michael, and Tim, who put this all together. Class is a podcast of DSA's National Political Education Committee, NPEC, which works to expand the knowledge of DSA members and non-members in the service of learning the struggle for socialism and democracy. You can find out more about NPEC by searching for us online or following us in social media, but the best way to find out what our committee is up to is by signing up for Red Letter, NPEC's monthly newsletter. And if you aren't already, you can become a DSA member by following the link in the podcast description. Okay, until next time, solidarity.