Article 1: Our Platform 

Preface: The Bay Area’s Autonomous Tenant Union

We are Bay Area tenants who are fed up with rising rents, evictions, disrepair, and harassment at the hands of landlords. We are fed up with our neighbors having no option but to live unsheltered and at constant risk of police harassment. We want to stop landlords, developers, and cops from looting and exploiting our communities.

Capitalism is what connects all of these housing problems. Profit is prioritized over our lives. A system that exploits our basic need for housing has no justification. Landlords should not exist. We will organize and fight for the abolition of the housing market. Together, we will combat our immediate issues and force our way toward overdue rent reductions across the Bay Area. We refuse to think small—the tenants struggle will not stop until rent and landlordism is abolished everywhere.

Article 1: Our Platform

1.1 We are of the working class. Every fight against landlords, real estate capitalists, venture capitalists, or the police is a fight for our class and thus for ourselves. Class solidarity is not a new idea. It is a centuries-old tradition. Peasants of 15th century England rioted against the closure and private sale of collective lands. 17th century Native Americans revolted against colonial invasion. Haitian revolutionaries ended the 18th century by overthrowing plantation landlords and slavery. 19th-century Parisians defeated the state and built the Paris Commune on the principle of collective ownership. In the 20th century Black sharecroppers in the US withstood Jim Crow and attacked landlords who were former slave owners. Exploitation and domination that took place in the past still lingers. The power of today’s landlords draws from these histories, but so too does our fight against them. “An injury to one is an injury to all” reverberates from the past into our present. This is the tradition we follow. 

1.2 Housing is a human right that arises from our basic need for a place to live. Fulfillment of this right requires us to abolish the housing market. From one side, the housing market is an arrangement of private land ownership, housing production, and housing allocation based on rent extraction and profit-making rather than community usefulness; from the other, the working class is divided into houseless tenants, who have been forced out of rental or private housing, and housed tenants, who remain living in rentals. This system of rent and profit is upheld and sustained by the state, through planning and policing. Today’s mass production of luxury condos and market-rate housing alongside concentrated poverty and displacement is a reflection of this system, as are rising rent burdens. So also are so-called non-profit affordable housing, which extracts rent, avoids taxes, and makes profits, without being affordable to the poorest tenants. Scarcity of housing is not the problem we face; it is the violent and exploitive social relations of capitalist housing. To make housing a human right requires a new system of rent-free, decommodified housing for all. It means the eventual abolition of tenancy as a status.

1.3 We need the power of mass action to win; our tenant union harnesses that power, channeled through tenant councils. The housing problems tenants face are immense because they are a symptom of capitalism. This is a system that places tremendous coordination and power in the hands of landlords, speculators, bosses, politicians, and bureaucrats. To win, we must build up our collective ability to not only defend ourselves against exploitation but to go on the offensive and demand new concessions like rent reductions. As a union, we flex our strength through collective actions, like rent strikes, direct actions, or mass mobilizations. To achieve this kind of power, we must build a mass organization, comprised of multitudes of militant tenants in multiplying tenant councils and tenant union Locals.

1.4 Building a mass organization requires us to connect different parts of a working class divided. We still live in an age of immense segregation, and we must build multiracial collective power through multilingual organizing projects. Public housing tenants facing cutbacks, houseless people facing eviction, poor Black and Brown tenants facing displacement, undocumented tenants facing threats of deportation, disabled tenants facing inaccessible housing, all tenants who face rent increases—all of these are sites of struggle that we must organize. With the working-class in the United States substantially comprising refugees from extraction and war in the third world, and the increasingly global character of real-estate capital and landlordism, we must also emphasize internationalism as we organize tenant councils and as we mobilize members for solidarity actions. If the tenants’ movement does not become international, it may not be victorious.

1.5 Without cops, there would be no risk in not paying rent. Landlords routinely break the law with impunity, and in turn dispatch cops to evict tenants over the slightest lease infractions. Here, at the site of eviction, where the knife edge of the state comes to the unconditional defense of private property, we can see the alignment between our struggle to abolish rent, and the struggle to abolish police. Abolition, amid recent uprisings, has reemerged as a potent, dynamic current on the revolutionary left, and abolitionist theory and practice has strongly informed our approach to aspects of tenant organizing that bring us into proximity with the cops. For these reasons, we should mobilize members in support of abolitionist actions and demands, and continue incorporating abolitionism into our strategy and political education.

1.6 Reforms are a consequence of the power that we have built outside of electoral politics. We must refrain from getting stuck in the rut of electoralism. Some reforms improve tenant conditions in the short term but make long-term collective struggle less likely. Individual tenants are channeled into state bureaucracies, like rent boards, that are difficult to organize around collectively. While some reforms may make organizing easier, directly chasing reforms often diverts our attention from building the power necessary to abolish the capitalist housing market.

1.7 In order to develop into a genuinely revolutionary organization of the working class we must intervene in political struggles relevant to our members and not sequester our activity into direct conflict with landlords. While economic struggle with landlords is the essential basis of building tenant councils and the tenants’ movement, an adequate tenant union must enter into political contention with landlords, real estate capitalists, and the state as it acts in support of our opponents’ interests. While reformism and electoralism will not meet our needs, we should ready ourselves to disrupt state actions that defend the ruling classes as well as the political organizations and actions of those classes themselves. Alongside disruption, we should formulate political demands that represent the necessity of radical structural change, such as rent reductions on the path to rent abolition, and a permanent eviction moratorium on the path to the end of the landlord class. We should not compromise on political demands nor enter into negotiations with the state.

1.8 Building power requires us to ask questions—to inquire—so that we can meaningfully address the diverse problems we all face. Surveys, or what we call inquiry, should be used to find out what issues exist and where. Our job is to always relate these seemingly unrelated problems to their root cause: capitalism, a system where landlords exploit tenants through unjust ownership of private property.

1.9 While we are devoted to organizing around housing, other mass movements exist and arise that hinge on different political issues that are nevertheless important. We must always support these movements, just as we would like to find support from others if and when a mass housing movement hits the streets.

Article 2: Membership and Dues

2.1 TANC is a mass organization that is democratically—which is to say collectively—run by its membership body. 

2.2 TANC has a two-part membership structure—a voting partition of tenants, and non-voting partition for allied homeowners. 

• 2.2a Voting membership is composed of tenants. “Tenant” is defined as anyone who does not own their home, including tenants of community land trusts, and does not have power over any other person’s housing situation. “Tenant” therefore makes no distinction between unhoused and housed renters. 
• 2.2b Non-voting membership is composed of non-tenants who own their own homes, including equity holders in limited-equity cooperatives, but who nevertheless align themselves with the tenants’ movement. In addition to non-tenants, bosses and managers, who have unilateral hiring, firing, and disciplinary power, are only eligible for non-voting membership.
• 2.2c Persons who are technically not eligible for non-voting membership can appeal for non-voting membership in an Assembly vote with two-thirds voting for the exception. 
• 2.2d Landlords, or agents of landlords, cannot be members of TANC.  “Landlord” is defined as a person who extracts rent and/or a person who has exclusive control over removal of another person’s tenancy status. Master-tenants who attempt to leverage their relative power over other tenants are subject to dismissal from TANC membership. 
• 2.2e Persons employed in law enforcement are not eligible for membership. 

2.3 TANC members will be given a membership TANC Union Card that says the following: “I pledge to build power alongside other tenants, to defend TANC members against landlords, and to support the movement for housing for all.” Members should find general agreement with the TANC platform. 

2.4 TANC members may not enter into the organization in order to redirect TANC’s energy towards the ends of liberal organizations, reactionary groups, including those directly or indirectly affiliated with any capitalist party. Evidence of such is grounds for expulsion. Members are free to engage in such efforts independent of TANC. 

2.5 Friends of TANC are welcome at Assemblies and other public events. Friends who regularly attend such events, and who qualify, are highly encouraged to become members.

2.6 Membership dues are required and begin as low as $1 per month, and no more than $50 per month. There is also a $0 option for Houseless and/or unemployed tenants. Dues information is private and there shall be no distinction between any members based on dues payments.

2.7 Dues shall be used for any and all organizational tasks. This includes but may not be limited to meeting supplies, educational materials, community events, and mobilizations. Dues may also be used to support movement efforts as they arise if approved by a majority in an Assembly vote. Major reimbursements of more than $200 require proposals to an assembly. Dues expenditures will be detailed for all members to see on a quarterly basis. If money becomes scarce, adjustments can be made to this policy in the monthly assembly. TANC money will come from membership dues, website donations and fundraisers. 

2.8 Our organizational model is centered on reciprocity. We hope that anyone who comes to us for tenant organizing and whose unit we help to organize will return the favor by helping us organize other tenants. This is how we grow. Tenants who organize with us are encouraged to become members of TANC. 

Article 3: Organizational Structure

3.1 Convention: An annual convention will be held to debate, discuss, and reassess TANC’s platform and TANC’s constitution. All TANC members are welcome. Only voting members may vote, and non-voting members may attend and speak at the convention. Non-member friends of TANC are welcome and may speak at the convention as well. Speaking preference will be granted to members. 

• 3.1a Convention information—i.e. candidates, new platforms, etc—must be circulated to TANC membership at least 30 days before the convention date. 
• 3.1b While it is recommended for people to meet in person, absentee voting will end at midnight on the night of the Convention. 
• 3.1c Ten percent of membership or 30 people, whichever is lower, will meet quorum for decisions in Conventions. Votes will be approved by a supermajority of two-thirds.

3.2 Branches: Branches are areas whereby the below mechanisms exist (3.3-3.7) so as to build a mass organization within a specific geographic area. New branches may be proposed if 15 dedicated TANC members sign a petition for it. Branch applications will be considered by the existing TANC branch(es). [As of the writing of this document, only one Branch exists in the East Bay.]

3.3 Assemblies: Assemblies have at least three functions: (1) For proposing and solidifying branch-wide tactical decisions that require organization-level coordination. (2) For proposing and solidifying branch-wide committees (3) For proposing and solidifying one-off exceptions to the TANC rules. Assemblies are open to members and TANC friends, though only members may make proposals and only voting members may vote on proposals. 

• 3.3a Assemblies will be held either monthly or bi-monthly. 
• 3.3b Ten percent or 20 people, whichever is lower, will meet quorum for decisions in Assemblies. Votes will be approved by a simple majority. Voting ends at midnight on the night of the assembly. If attendance does not meet standard quorum, a quorum of at least 13 people can make decisions with consensus in order to not stall uncontroversial business.
• 3.3c Proposals must be available for TANC members to read 7 days before Assembly. 
• 3.3d Assemblies may also be used to stage debates or any other event that promotes education for TANC members. 
• 3.3e Proxy voting, as well as remote access like Zoom, will be made available for those who cannot attend assemblies. 
• 3.3f If translation or childcare is a barrier for TANC members, either will be provided.
• 3.3g If money is a barrier to attending assemblies, TANC’s general fund can be used to assist with transportation. 
• 3.3h Assemblies must have the function of approving proposals regarding TANC conventions. 

3.4 Working Groups: Working groups are more informal branch-wide bodies that do experimental organizing work where there is a lack of clarity regarding how to build power, for example houseless organizing, or for special projects that relate to changing local conditions, for example a local union strike. 

• 3.4a Working groups can be formed if at least 4 TANC members sign on and notify the organization at an assembly. Working groups must remain open for all members, have open meetings that are put on the TANC calendar. Working groups that do not meet for six months will be considered closed. 

3.5 Committees: Committees perform essential branch-wide functions for TANC to operate as a mass organization, such as onboarding and tenant organizing. 

• 3.5a Each branch will have at least two committees. (1) An Onboarding Committee that works to bring semi- and non-engaged TANC members into more core organizational roles, and (2) An Organizing Committee that monitors active and inactive organizing work, produces new efforts and work, trains many new militant organizers, does ongoing general onreach like flyering, canvassing, etc. 
• 3.5b New committees can be formed if at least 2 TANC members present a proposal that is approved by a majority of Assembly vote. Each presenting member must be committed to working as an active member within the committee.
• 3.5c Committees may make decisions according to collectively chosen method. Committees are responsible for making all TANC decisions relevant to the function of their committee, though they are answerable to the larger membership body at the Assembly. As regularly as necessary, committees should report to the Assembly.

3.6 Locals: Locals are the lifeblood of TANC and have a large mandate to organize, outreach, plan events, and take on projects so long as they comport to the TANC platform. A local is a TANC group that meets on the basis of neighborhood or region. TANC locals must institute regular meetings at one time per month. The function of locals are to (a) recruit new members through events of their choosing, (b) to build and sustain new organizing projects, (c) to help defend local tenants, and (d) make all decisions relevant to their local context. Locals can not make endorsements of long-term campaigns outside of TANC, or of political candidates.

• 3.6a. Formation: TANC members who reside in an area where there is not currently a Local are encouraged to identify 3 neighboring TANC members, or to recruit 3 of their neighbors to become TANC members, and notify the organization at an assembly of their plan to form a Local. The initial 4 members must be eligible for voting membership.
• 3.6b Decisions: Locals may make decisions according to a collectively chosen method. Non-voting TANC members may not participate in decisions. 

3.7 Councils: A tenant council is an organized group of tenants who share a landlord and who have an affiliation with TANC. 

• 3.7a Self-Rule: The structure and organization, including leadership and governing documents, are used according to the preferences of the council. Councils may be informal, and exist only through the active communication and coordination of council members. Some councils may be formal, which means that a majority of organized tenants have voted to officially become a council. TANC can and should provide opinions on internal organizing based on lessons of organizing experiences. 
• 3.7b Affiliation: Affiliation of a council with TANC is preferably official: with a council voting to affiliated with TANC. However, affiliation may be unofficial, with some members of a council joining TANC as individuals. All affiliated tenant councils are to be supported by TANC. Councils that are not officially affiliated can be supported at the request of individuals who are also TANC members.  

Article 4: Leadership

4.1 The role of leadership positions in TANC are not political but administrative. TANC leaders are not political decision-makers, but are tasked with directing the organization in line with the will of the membership body and ensuring that the organization runs smoothly. All positions are subject to recall or resignation at any time.

• 4.1a All leadership positions must be filled by persons who are TANC members. Voting members are preferred, but non-voting members may be eligible for these positions.
• 4.1b Branch-wide positions (4.2) can be recalled if 4 TANC members petition to do so at an Assembly and the Assembly votes to approve.
• 4.1c – Local chapter positions (4.4) are subject to recall by their local chapter at any time.
• 4.1d – Special elections for replacement of leadership positions should occur at Assemblies and in local chapters following their regular decision making processes. The term of a replacement will be the remainder of the original.

4.2 Branch-wide Positions. Each TANC Branch shall have the following 7 branch-wide positions. Branch Coordinator Positions will be selected at the annual TANC convention. Terms are set at 1 year. Additional branch-wide positions may also be created and elected by the Assembly (i.e. ATUN delegate).

• 4.2a Onboarding Committee Coordinator (2 position): Facilitates and maintains the infrastructure for the onboarding committee. This includes: procurement of committee meeting space, ensuring that general membership are aware of meetings, maintaining access to onboarding materials (slideshows, membership rosters, etc).
• 4.2b Organizing Committee Coordinator (2 position): Facilitates and maintains the infrastructure for the tenant organizing committee. This includes: procurement of committee meeting space, ensuring that general membership are aware of meetings, maintaining access to tenant organizing materials (walksheets, tenant organizing training materials, etc). 
• 4.2c Membership Coordinators (2 positions): Facilitates and maintains the infrastructure for the TANC Assemblies. This includes: procurement of assembly meeting space, coordinating food and drinks for Assemblies, ensuring membership sign-ins for Assemblies, facilitating remote attendance to assemblies. They will help delegate labor for facilitating translation, childcare, and other accessibility needs. 
• 4.2d Communications Coordinators (2 positions): Communications coordinators are tasked with maintaining the TANC calendar and website, sending a TANC newsletter email, and functioning social media accounts.
• 4.2e Language Access Coordinators (2 positions): Language access coordinators are tasked with strategizing the development of a multilingual tenant union and bottomlining interpretation and translation.
• 4.2f Treasurer (2 position): Treasurers are tasked with maintaining TANC dues, providing a short financial report to the general membership meetings or at the request of any member, reimbursing TANC members for essential expenses, and paying any invoices. If a TANC branch’s capacity is too limited to allow for more than one Treasurer, one of the Treasurers can be from another TANC branch.
• 4.2g Sustainability Committee: A branch may decide by vote at an assembly or convention to form a Sustainability Committee that will replace the Treasurer(s) and fulfill the same duties as the Treasurer(s). The Committee will represent all locals within the TANC branch, and will work to recruit new members from locals without current representation. At least three locals should be actively represented on the Sustainability Committee at all times. All representatives must be TANC members selected by their local according to a method collectively chosen by the local, will serve 12-month terms, and will be subject to recall by their locals. If a TANC branch earns $15,000 or more during a 12-month period, the branch must replace the Treasurers with a Sustainability Committee within six months of reaching that income threshold. Any selected Sustainability Committee member may be delegated to participate in the Coordinator Committee (4.3).

4.3 Coordinator Committee.  In order to synchronize the efforts of TANC-wide Committees and Working Groups, Coordinators and delegates will meet monthly as a Coordinator Committee. Though each Committee must send at least one Coordinator to participate in these, the meetings of the Coordinator Committee will be open to any TANC member. As Coordinators are administrative and not political positions, this Committee will act in accordance with the will of the membership. Initiative on the Committee’s part should advance that will, as expressed through the Constitution, Conventions and Assemblies, reading between the lines when necessary but never overriding them. The Coordinator Committee should work to replace themselves and should bottomline the TANC convention planning. 

4.4 Local Stewards. Each TANC local must have at least the following positions. Local chapters can select and reselect stewards at will. Terms are set at 6 months. 

• 4.4.a Tenant Organizing Steward (1-2 position per local): Tenant Organizing Stewards are key for ensuring that organizing projects do not get siloed into local chapters. Duties include: (a) reporting and coordinating local organizing projects with the Organizing Committee, (b) looking for places of collaboration between locals (for example, building tenant councils), (c) providing organizer training sessions to TANC members in locals, (d) making changes to the organizer training process in the Organizer Committee. (e) Stewards bring discussions back to locals from assemblies and will try to represent the interests of those who aren’t at assemblies. Stewards may choose to delegate these functions. 
• 4.4.b Onboarding Steward (1-2 position per local): Onboarding Stewards are key for ensuring that TANC members are knowledgeable about the tenant union. Duties include: (a) giving new chapter members an onboarding process, (b) attending chapter-wide onboarding meetings, (c) collectively updating onboarding materials and processes within the onboarding committee. (e) Onboarding stewards shall provide information on skills and capacities collected during onboarding. Onboarding stewards must notify membership coordinators of accessibility needs, such as translation and childcare.  

* Last updated: 2023 convention