Greetings friends. My name is Jess McLean and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints

of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining

power structures, and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,

we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle

capitalism, decolonize our spaces, and bring about the political revolution that we know

we need. The disconnect between wages and rent prices has become truly staggering. In Toronto,

the wage needed to afford a one-bedroom apartment is over double that of minimum wage. Politicians

routinely fail renters, opting to appeal to homeowners more often than not. And so, as

with everything, the pushback has to come from the ground up. At King and John in Toronto,

the residence of two buildings owned by the same corporate landlord started a rent strike

on June 1st. We were lucky to interview Bruno of the York South-Western Tenant Union. Bruno's

optimism was contagious and he was generous in sharing his knowledge of genuine community

organizing with us. He gives us the rough blueprints of starting a tenant union. Connecting, finding

common ground, sharing knowledge and examples of success. finding courage and pushing back

against those who would price them out of their home. We also get to find out just how they

got to the point of a rent strike. The decision was not done in haste, but after years of attempts

by members of the York Southwestern Tenant Union to reason and negotiate with Dream Unlimited.

In the end though, the episode is really about so much more than a rent strike.

How do we politicize our community in meaningful ways? How do we harness collective powers?

And some answers to the housing crisis. For me personally, this episode reinvigorated a

lot of my fight, and I hope that it can do the same for you, let's listen in. Welcome Bruno,

can you introduce yourself to the audience for us please? Sure, thank you for having me. My

name is Bruno Dobruzzi and I am a tenant in Toronto. I am part of the York Southwestern

Tenant Union, and we've been organizing with tenants in the northwest corner of Toronto

for the last five years now. And yeah, we're now, among other things, leading a rent strike

in two buildings in our community. Congratulations on the rent strike. I think that has excited

a lot of people, but there might be somebody listening who has never even heard of a tenant

union. Very promising developments indeed. Can you let us know what a tenant union is and

how one gets started in one? You know, like we know workplace unions. We've talked to Acorn

about community unions, but this is a little more specific. Yeah, so I mean, actually, at

least in Ontario, we have a very flexible law that allows tenants to organize. Oftentimes

tenants don't know this, landlords don't put it out there. obviously, but it is in the Residential

Tenancies Act that tenants have a right to organize. It doesn't say what form. It can be anything.

It can be a building committee. It can be a tenant union. It can be tenant associations.

We decided to form a tenant union because we felt that, number one, a lot of the tenants

that organize in our community have multiple part-time jobs, so their labor unions was not

really, even if they were unionized. there was really no space for them to have a community

to build up their activism, their political education, to take action. It was very difficult

when you have to shuffle between many part-time jobs, even if you're unionized, to create that

kind of community. And we came to the realization that, and the same for us, is that it is our

home space where we can organize. So we call it a tenant union, and we hope that, you know,

one day we could have collective bargaining. rights with landlords, that would be kind of

a long-term goal. But in many ways, it can be, it can take any form, tenant organizing. What's

important is that you have the right and that the landlord cannot interfere. If they do,

you know, you can have many tools to actually call them out and they can get penalized for

trying to. How did you get started in this organizing? What are some of the first steps involved?

It seems, you know, living in Toronto, oftentimes in these buildings, it feels very disconnected.

Like sometimes I don't know who my neighbors are. How do you go from that to organizing

with your neighbors? I think it's actually much easier that part than organizing in your workplace.

The first task is knocking on your neighbor's doors and then you will realize that a lot

of the issues that you have are shared with your neighbors. So that's kind of the first

part. That's how we started. We had issues with our landlords and other neighbors had issues

with their landlords. And we just started knocking on our neighbors' doors and saying, hey, these

are issues that we're having. Did you get that notice that says X and Y? I don't understand

what it says. And that kind of ballooned into many other people wanting to talk to their

neighbors, the word spreading. So I think that's number one is to. realize that you're not alone.

I think that's a common feeling among many people. We started before the pandemic, but it was

great that we were there during the pandemic because it helped keep people connected and

organized as well. But yeah, the first one is just knowing that you're not alone and then

just willing to go out with your neighbors. And that's when people like us that may not

live in a specific building, but we've done it before, we've done it where we live. It

helps to... bring people along who have done it before. So it takes away that kind of fear,

but it's not a fear that paralyzes you, just a kind of a shame of like, oh, what am I gonna

say? What if they don't like me? What if, I don't know, I don't like them because I don't

know, they walk their dog in their apartment and I live right below them. I don't know,

there are many ways that you may have issues with your neighbors. But I think knocking on

doors and then most probably you're gonna find out that people share your realities. and that

you have a lot of things in common. Maybe your kids go to the same schools. Maybe you actually

hang out in the same places in the neighborhood. This is actually something very common in Toronto

rental buildings, I would say, in working class communities. I don't know if you live in a

condo downtown if that's a shared reality, but it's definitely in a community like ours, people

find out that they actually share a lot in common. So that's the number one. The second part is

finding a common issue. And that can be very broad. People have all kinds of issues. We've

always found that having a very concrete issue that is happening in their building, it's key.

So we can have very broad goals, like we wanna overturn the landlord system and expropriate

buildings, et cetera. But what actually brings people, especially people that may not have

political experience or may not have been part of a political organization. is very concrete

demands that they can actually see the change of having the collective organizing. So anything

from people don't notice the rent increases that are above the provincial guideline. What

does that mean? Why are we all getting this? Is this, you know, are they allowed to do it?

How do we fight back? That's one concrete. The other could be they're doing repairs that nobody

asked for, and they're not repairing my unit. So that when you knock on other people though,

you'll find that those are very concrete issues. that happen to every tenant, more or less.

And that builds the unity and it's just very simple concrete demand that leads to broader

issues. Why are landlords allowed to do this? What can tenants do? So that actually expands

the political imagination, but we never start by saying, hey, how are we expropriate this

building? Because probably most people will not come along. It's very difficult to start

that way. So yeah, it's not just a way to fight back against landlords, but a way to politicize

our community, right? Something that seems sometimes at a reach in the electoral political world

and can only seem to be done with like genuine community organizing. But Bruno, how do you

cross that mental barrier though? So I get like connecting neighbors. I mean, door knocking

is scary for some people. I've done it. I've campaigned. Some people don't answer their

door, a text message going off at the wrong time sends them wondering what's going on.

But a real need for third spaces that reinforces that need for third spaces in buildings or

near high rises where folks can connect in more organic ways than having to go door to door.

But you've connected, you've found common ground. Again, that's probably easy with bad landlords

and high rents. But then how do you convince them? that they can go up against their landlord

and be successful and not have retribution to be within their rights, to not expect to get

evicted.

Where does that courage come from, I suppose? So I think it comes... You always try to graph

an example that... you built in the past. Kind of the issue is where you have the first example

you can grab and once you have that, it helps in saying, hey, your neighbors in this other

building did it and nobody got evicted. Why not you do it yourself? Now, mind you that

what we're doing now, and we can get to that later on the Rennstrike, is kind of the ultimate,

this has been a three years long work in these buildings. It's not something that you, I will

never throw it out there as a first option. for people because it takes a lot of organizing.

And if you come, we had a lot of people reaching out and now from all over the country saying,

hey, I want to do a rent strike. And it's like, okay, well, are you meeting the conditions

that you need to do it? Otherwise you are exposing people to- Do you even have a tenant union

yet? Have you talked to your neighbors or is it just you sitting in your room that you read

this and you're like, hey, I'm gonna do it. And don't do it by yourself. You are gonna

expose yourself to a lower risk. So I think- Finding good examples, started by things that

are winnable, and then building up people's confidence. That's, I think, one. The second

is finding just good messengers. You always have tenants in buildings that have confronted

the landlord for whatever reason. It's being able to say, hey, we need you to. bring your

neighbors along because your neighbors are going through the same and they see you as a person

of reference or maybe more than one. And I don't know any case we have tenants organizing in

13 buildings in the community. I don't know any building that doesn't have that one tenant.

It's often the person that approaches us that has started already. And they are the kind

of leading force that can say, hey, actually, you know what? I don't know. I took them to

the land run. Tenenbord and I beat them and you know you can do it too. Sometimes it's

like that and sometimes it's just like a small fight back like I don't know they said that

they were gonna come and fix this they didn't do it so I went to the media it's a classic

and maybe somebody picked up an interview something like that. Anyways somebody took that courage

and now it's about building the collective space around I think that's the most effective. Just

the other thing I was going to say that we do a lot of work to is we try to build a lot of

community around this. So for us it's very important, number one, to identify, we don't say people

aren't organized. People are organized. They're just not organized in the spaces that we think

they should be or that we as political people think that it should be parties, unions, or

tenant unions. 99% of the people we organize here with are organized through religious organizations,

for example. They go to church, they go to mosque. They are very involved usually in their churches,

in their mosque, and they're involved in community building. So they have that experience that

for us is how do we tap into that, into that experience. How do we bring along, for example,

now on the rent strike, we have the local imam is supporting the rent strike. Stuff like that

is very important because that also builds people's confidence to say, hey, you're already part

of a collective. We're just trying to replicate that in this context, right? And just the second

part is having fun. So we do a lot of, we have movie nights, we have ice cream parties, block

parties. Very often in especially municipal politics and spaces, homeowners get all the

space. You know, homeowners do all the festivals. They have the movie nights in the parks where

it's only white folk who are invited. So we try to actually take up public space for tenants.

It's very important for us. So there's a Santa Claus parade in our neighborhood that nobody

had ever had a tenant-specific parade. So we put together a parade with characters from

Frozen. For your Southwestern specifically? Yeah. It's a parade. It's a huge local event.

It's massive. Thousands of people from the neighborhood go to this parade. So first we approached the

business association. We said, hey, we're going to have a fleet too. Who are you? We're a group

of tenants and we're going to have a fleet. We want to have a tenant Santa. And obviously

they say, look, there's only one Santa. We don't want to confuse kids. If every fleet has their

own Santa, it can be very confusing. So you can do the fleet. Just don't have a tenant

Santa because there's one Santa comes at the end. It's that everybody has the same. So in

our fleet, we did it around Frozen, the Disney movie. And it was the big hit was Olaf, the

character. I don't know if you've seen Frozen. Wait, you probably have if you don't, you also

probably have. And it was Olaf asking with a big sign that said, Elsa, will you freeze my

rent? So just only that. That's cool. It was funny. And also it allowed us to, we gave out

candy with know your rights information throughout the parade and people were laughing, taking

photos. Oh, this is a, so creating that space that is fun. And also that people feel like,

Hey, what is this about? They're actually openly inviting me. It's funny. And it's also about

my rights. Kind of a mix of those things. This is right now. I'm just soaking up pure joy.

I don't. It's going to take me a second to formulate another question because. I'll give you another

example that maybe helps also reinforce this. So we have, and this, we started doing COVID

and then we kept doing it. So we have a newsletter. One thing that we've done is we don't deny

digital spaces. They're important for certain groups, but for us, the vast majority, it's

a paper that goes under people's doors. So we have a system of distribution where we have

tenants who put out the newsletter in each of their buildings. every three or four months,

depending also what we can do. The biggest hit in the newsletter that we have is at the back,

we have a crossword. If you feel the crossword is based on what's in the newsletter, so you

have to read the newsletter. If you feel the crossword and you send us a photo, you get

a t-shirt. Is it one of those York Southwestern? Yeah, you get a t-shirt from New York, so let

me see if I can find... Blueprint is going to need to make a donation so we can score some

of these shirts. Sorry, let me... I'm just out for a sec. Anyways, so in this, basically this

newsletter has information, always has something like this is what's happening, you may have

heard, let's say the government announced a rent freeze. what you do, stuff like that.

And it also has always a social thing where we invite people to something that is just

fun. And the crossword at the back, and it always has something like around your rights, like

one, let's say it's summer, we'll talk about air conditioning. Can you put up your own air

conditioning? Can the landlord charge you extra, et cetera? And then the crossword will be always

around that. And then when people feel it, they take a photo, they send it to the tenant union

email, and they get a tissue. So for us it's like, okay, fun, somebody did the crossword,

great. But somebody took the word to read the newsletter, to do the crossword, take a photo,

and expect the t-shirt, those... Those become key points in those buildings for us. It's

someone that we build a very strong connection with. So it allows us, they might not be- It's

like a noble phishing scam, right? Like, if you open this email, we got you. I know if

you went through the effort of filling out this crossword, I can get you to organize your building.

Kind of, yeah. You gotta find them somehow. But it's a way, and not always, you know, sometimes

it's just people that like doing- crosswords and everybody loves swag. And I love like every

time I go to a meeting, I want the T-shirt. There is one there, you know, so we just the

same logic. This reminds me a bit of an idea I was thinking about recently because I was

I was walking on the street where I live, where there's a lot of mid-rise buildings and every

single one has lawns in front of them that are just like empty grass lawns. And I have been

having like this urge to like try and organize some community gardens within my building to

use that land. Cause cause the way I see it, that could feed the half of the building in

the space that we have, and it seems like such a waste. And so you're, you're inspiring a

little bit of my fight there. Um, I wanted to ask. about because in the past I've heard examples

of times when, for example, for the simple act of organizing without even having a rent strike,

for the simple act of organizing tenants have received threats of evictions that happened

in Parkdale at one of the buildings. And so I know that there's a lot of different ways.

not all of them legal, which landlords try to slow down this organizing to fight this. I

was wondering what your experiences with that and like how you help protect people from that

both. Legally, I guess, but also just that scary, right? And that can put a lot of brakes on

something. So how do you, how do you fight that? Yeah. So landlords go on all kinds of intimidation.

This is what I think it's sometimes funny to hear when you, you get the landlord narrative

in the media, as if these are innocent folks and innocent corporations that just, they're

housing providers, but they, they go to like very large stags. tends to intimidate folks

and now on the rent strike it's been very intense. So we do a few things. One is just actually

normalize that you're gonna get intimidated because what you're doing is actually a threat

to them and try to get people prepared for it so that when they get an N4 which is the most

common eviction notice because you're late on rent. that you don't freak out and that you

know that end force are most of the time bullshit, that they're not, they're poorly worded. They,

you do not have to move out by the time it says, um, you don't know, have to, that it doesn't

even mean that the landlord has started an eviction application. The landlord cannot evict you.

It has to be an order of the landlord and tenant board. You have a right to a hearing. There

are many things that you can bring up to try to put people at ease on that and to prepare

them, especially when you're doing collective organizing. There is a big challenge that we

have, which is how much do we do individual cases of people who are... And for us it's

a challenge because our priority is to do collective organizing. And there is a sequence and I think

sometimes it's reinforced by a lot of organizations, by a lot of... political parties, that people

get serviced, right? You go to an office, you resolve your problem, you go home, and that's

it. You went to your constituency office, your MPP or your MP or your counselor resolve your

issue, and then you didn't have to collectively fight back. You just want to get a resolution.

You go to the local NGO for the same. And I think that's a very dangerous kind of mode

that is very common in Canada. I'm from Argentina, from Latin America. I don't think that was

never in my head as a grassroots organization that there was a risk of becoming a service

organization because people don't go to collective organizations to get a service. But I think

it's very common here. And sometimes that's the challenge with people that... they come,

they expect something, you resolve for them individually, they might not be willing to

fight, and then when they get the threats from the landlord, they kind of back off. It's a

fine line for us how much of those cases we try to take on and to defend people. That being

said, we have normally we make a distinction with evictions. If somebody comes and says,

hey, I got an eviction order. The sheriff said they're coming. We are, and we've done it before,

physically going to resist the eviction from the sheriff. Normally when that happens, it

has happened only a few cases, the Sheriff's Office doesn't want to confront. It puts the

landlord in a really bad place, so they generally need to do a negotiation, but it's very tense.

And it's very tense for people. If you have kids, you know, losing your home, it's very

different from losing your job. Both are tragic, but the home is particularly, I think, threatening

to your stability as a family, as a person. So yeah, I think inoculation is a big thing.

It's just saying, look, the dollar will respond. But you know what? They always do this anyways,

even when you don't organize. So the eviction notice is a good example. People get enforced

for nothing all the time. And then they get withdrawn because when you push back and say,

hey, this is illegal, what you're doing is. they withdraw them. We had many, many cases

like that. So at the same time, I think it's a threat that gets old fairly quickly because

people get very used to it. And yeah, and I think just, landowners, it's kind of backfires.

If there is some kind of collective organizing, if you're on your own, yeah, it can be scary.

But that being said, there's people that get it all the time and they keep going with their

lives. I know you said a rent strike is your last resort and most unions would say the same

thing, right? It's the most disruptive and risky endeavor, but that's the reality at 33 King

Street and 22 John Street. They're on strike right now. What led to that last resort? What

couldn't be resolved any other way? And yeah, can you tell us more about the strike in general?

You know, I think that's one of those concepts that we've talked about a lot, but it's not

realized all that often. I'm seeing folks in Thorncliffe are also on strike since May 1st.

So this is really promising to see and it's hopefully contagious. Right. So what did it

take to finally convince folks that this they needed to take this hard step? So to give you

some context, both those buildings are owned by the same company, which is called and it's

a company that claims to be socially conscious landlord that cares about the tenants. And

I think the hypocrisy of the company has gone a long way in leading tenants to want to run

strike. But I guess the first to explain how we get there is that tenants in those buildings

did all of the protest sequencing that... you're supposed to do by the system, right? You go

to your MPs, you go to your MPPs, to your local counselor, you know. They did a petition to

the landlord saying, hey, 33 King is a building in Toronto with the highest number of above-gallon

rent increases in the city. What that means for those who don't know on above-gallon rent

increase in Ontario, is when your landlord can apply because they're doing capital repairs

and putting this in quotation marks because often these are cosmetic. bullshit applications.

Those are the repairs you were talking about before that nobody asked for, but they're being...

Exactly. Yeah. And then they can increase the rent above the provincial guidelines. So every

year the government says rents can go up by 2.5%, suppose for this year. But this allows

landlords to kind of go around rent control and increase rent. So these above-gallant rent

increases were relatively new in... They were introduced in the 1990s. They didn't exist

before. And it's this whole thing that landlords cry poor because all the old buildings that

they need repairs. But at the same time, these same landlords are claiming very high profits

on their rents. So for example, Dream, in these two buildings, in their own financial reports,

they say 50% of every rent is profit. 50%, I don't know any other business that you have

those profit margins and you still need to get extra money. Out of housing! This isn't just

any product. This is something people talk about decommodifying 50% profit margins. Makes Gail

and Weston look charitable. Yeah, like he should get into housing and they are actually President's

Choice is getting into housing. Don't tell me that, Bruno. It is happening. So, but what,

so, after the King, tenants have fought many years against these applications. So they had

just the last ones were in 2018. 2019 and 2021. This is supposed to be like kind of once every

20 year applications that landlord make for capital repairs. They clearly doing it every

year. And the one that really pissed them off the most was 2021 when DAK4 announced, we're

gonna have a rent freeze in Ontario because of the pandemic, but he excluded above-gallon

rent increases. So people had a rent increase, even though they were hearing everywhere that

there was a rent freeze. Hold on, I just wanna clarify that point. So during- Yeah. rent freeze

the only increases were the ones that were even above grade. So you could only have really

big rent increases not standard ones. Correct. There is a limit on how much AGI's can go but

yes it's normally double the guideline the provincial guideline. So people are supposed to get zero

they got three percent. The provincial guideline is normally around two. And on top of that

There is the issue that you saw an explosion of above-guile and renting applications. And

because basically what happens is that I'm a landlord, I apply for this. Until it gets approved,

it might take a while. I can start charging this right away to tenants. In those notices

that you send to tenants, it does say like you can pay, it's an optional payment to pay the

extra amount. But the way the notices are framed, it actually, basically the fear is that if

I don't pay the full amount, I'm gonna be evicted. That's what the notice gives the sense to be,

right? So a lot of people just end up paying the full amount because they don't know. Then

when we find out, we say, look, you're not obliged to pay until it has been approved by the Landlord

and Tenant Board, we can fight it, et cetera. But basically they start charging it right

away. You can see the value of the union already, like without anything else, like having that

knowledge that you talked about having to spread around. So it's so easy to be manipulated in

those circumstances without knowing what your rights are. I can only imagine too, that for

people who are here on work visas, on study visas, international students, which is making

more and more a larger part of the tenant demographic that it's that much easier to manipulate and

to exploit because there may not be as familiar with what the the processes and rules are here,

right? Mm-hmm. Even for permanent residents, I just became a citizen a week ago, I was a

permanent resident until very recent. Congratulations. When you do all the applications, thank you.

Now I can go to jail. But it's placing to that, even for someone like myself, when you look

at all the paperwork you have to do just to get permanent residency, and then from permanent

resident to citizenship, it's all this thing around not breaking the law. Right? So people

get afraid that this could mean criminal, that if you resist anything from your landlord,

it could be part of your immigration file. It has nothing to do, and they cannot connect

those two. But that is a fear that plays into that, and especially if you're in a more precarious

status, or you have no status. In those cases, it's even more challenging to organize. We've

had not so much in big buildings, but rooming houses. informal rooming houses and I know

a lot because of language, Latin American folks had reached out and they're in much more precarious

positions to confront the landlord. Although the landlord is entirely illegal what they're

doing but it's a fight of illegalities. So just to go back on the rent strike, so the 33 King

was above about guyland rent increases One thing that we did last year after all of that mobilization

with the same landlord, they agreed to negotiate the 2018 application that they had put together.

And they actually cut it in half in that negotiation. Because that still hadn't been approved. Is

that how long they take? Yeah, they take a long time. OK, but in the meantime, people pay.

Yeah, yeah. Because they are afraid, etc. So back and forth, back and forth, we get a negotiation

going. They agreed to cut it in half. It's an order which meant. that for about 200 tenants

that were part of that application, they should have given back money. It meant about $1.5

million that we were giving back to tenants over 10 years. So it's like hundreds of thousands

of dollars a year that the landlord was going to have to return to tenants. We signed a deal.

Yay, we won, blah, blah. In three months, when they were supposed to do it, they don't do

it. And that's when you have very little recourse as a tenant. You don't, it's not you can take

them to court and say, you breach an order. That doesn't exist and it takes another, any

space takes years. And that's what led that building to be like, that's it. Like we did

everything the system is telling us. Be polite, be friendly, talk to your landlord. These guys

totally broke their word and... Yeah, now this is the only choice we have. So actually the

idea of the rent strike didn't come from us. It came from tenants in the building who said,

well, what's that's it. That's not I mean, we don't even know what our rent is now because

they were supposed to cut us our rent. They they failed to do that. So what is where it

kind of legal nebula here? Yeah, you can't convince those folks to go into negotiations with the

landlord again. You can't all the systems have failed them at that point. Yeah. So there was

a core group of people in this building had also, it's a building with a lot of long-term

tenants. People are very aware that this is the last affordable housing that exists in

the city, so they're not going to move out anytime soon and they're not going to give it up. And

also it's people that have built their lives in this community, so they're staying. And

I think the level of frustration was so high that people started thinking about this and

then we just put the goal of like, okay, well, look, this is what... And RenStrike will imply

this is what it means, this is the numbers that we need. We can't just call RenStrike with

just the hardcore people. We need to convince at least half of the building. And we thought

about at the time half of the building was 200 units. So it's a 400 unit building, 33 King.

But anyways, we got to 220 and that's when we called the strike on June 1st. But to get there,

it took months of knocking on doors, talking to your neighbors, and it had to be done by

tenants. You had to convince your neighbor, why are you willing to do it? And why are you

willing to? That's the best argument we have. get people marking like, okay, what do your

neighbors think? You know, this unit is supportive, this one is hesitant, this one is not. They

start marking so that we know where to come back, what kind of, who may be a better messenger,

you know, somebody maybe not so comfortable in English, let's send someone who speaks Spanish,

or Somali, or another language. So all of that took months until June 1st, which is when 33

King started the rain strike. And these buildings, they share lander, next to each other on two

different streets but they're next to each other they share parking and 22 John is a new building

was built or occupied after 2018. So it is not part of the rent control that for took out

rent control from new buildings. So people in this building have been getting rent increases

of 10% a year sometimes. This year it's a case study where they get 10% rent increases. I

was looking at online and it was $3,900 for a one bedroom apartment. And this building,

I got... my source here, you know very well, Chiara Padavani, that $10 billion of public

funds was used. Ten million. Ten million would be out. I mean, ten million is scandalous.

Ten million is... Was used to build this building that now is anything but affordable. Yeah.

I mean, just to be clear, $3,900, that would require a salary of $140,000 a year to be what

the recommended third of your... salary towards rent, which doesn't who's making that kind

of money? Nobody and nobody who lives in this area. So what happens is that people just cram

together. And it's a building that it's very fancy and new where living conditions are actually

worse than in other older, just because how many people are living together. So 22 John

is not rent controlled. They also been fighting many years. It was one year where they managed

to negotiate. The first year people moved in, the landlord wanted 25% rent increases. And

there was a collective organizing that brought it down to five, which is still high. From

24-5 to 5, it's like a massive victory. I'm sure that ensured a lot of people could stay.

Like that's the difference of being able to perform it or not. People move out all the

time because they don't know that it's not rent controlled, this is not clear to them when

they rent, and then they end up getting these high increases. So when 22John heard that 33King

was going on rent strike against the same landlord, he said, hey, we want to join. And that's when

they joined a month later on July 1st. So now it's both buildings. I would say it's about

300 unit between both buildings that are rent strike 22 John is like less than half occupied

is kind of a semi empty building because of how expensive it is and how much turnover there

is and Yeah, it's about probably 500 tenants altogether, if most people don't live by themselves.

So it's a big crowd of people to try to keep engaged and to also try to have a common message

that everybody can be part of. I wanted to ask about that actually, about that solidarity

between buildings and... Have you worked with other tenant unions throughout this process?

What kind of communication is there with other community organizations of various forms? Yeah,

so before, so when we started discussing, so we've been in touch with many other tenant

organizations in Toronto, the FMTA, the Federation of Metro Tenant Association, and folks from

Parkdale Organize, folks from Acorn. We have a policy that's fairly open. We want tenants,

we want to win, and our problem is landlords, not other organizations. So we take that position.

always easy, but that's how we operate. And so when we were discussing the Rennstrike,

we did do a lot of like consultation with people that had done it or the issues or the first

things that happened, you know, what do you think made a difference, et cetera, to try

to build up that confidence and also based on the experience from other people that had gone

on Rennstrike. So the case of Parkdale, there is the case of Hamilton as well. So just to

see what happened. Thorncliffe because they started earlier so a lot of the things happen

earlier to them but it's the same things that are happening here so it's kind of good to

keep tabs on that. The other part I would say is that we worked a lot to get folks on board

who may not be the usual suspects who come on for supporting a Ren Strike. Like who? As I

said before, community organizations, but unions. And it's been huge. Like we had very positive

response from unions. It helped that a lot of us are connected to the union movement, but

it was huge to the point that, yeah, we. We had big unions that I don't think they ever

had done something around housing like this. One thing is to demand affordable housing,

another thing is to come up for a rent strike. So we had Unifor, QP Ontario, Opsu, library

workers. The library workers of Toronto have been like the most solid allies we've had for

years. Those are good allies to have. The whole Toronto York Region Labor Council as well,

right? Amazing. They've been amazing. like touching base, you know what do you guys need, what

can we do on our side. So that was a big thing for us to try to show also to tenants that

are going on a REN strike is a big decision that you're not alone, not just your neighbors,

but look at all these people that... is with us. And that's why we did the rally. The main

goal of the rally was to show that kind of community solidarity and support. So it was a rally and

barbecue, just to add the fun part. And right after the rally, we had a community barbecue.

We like music, where people could just chill, you know, it's not all just stress. That was

one of the big takeaways that we had from our interview with Alejandra Acorn to bring joy

into those movements. And these fights are long and hard and we better make sure people are

having have space to relax and connect without having to talk the fight all the time. But

I'm getting really giddy. Like I'm very excited because you know, you're talking about Thorncliff,

that was May 1st. 33 John was on June 1st. No, I'm getting them mixed up then. King Street

on June 1st, July 1st, another building joins. You know, you talked about I asked you where

people find the courage and your answer was examples. So surely like this is giving examples

tenfold. The more exposure because you guys are getting a lot of exposure on this. Something

I'm sure landlords are not very happy about. What's the response been from Dream Unlimited?

Between embarrassing and predictable, I would say. So we met them in April. when we had this

polite petition with the same demands. We draw the AGI from 33 King, respect rent control

at 22 John. The demands are actually fairly, they're not radical, let's say. We're not saying

we want free rent. We could give them the profits that they have, but it's actually very simple

demands. We want you to respect rent control, essentially in both buildings, and to pay back

for the services that you took from tenants because you're doing renovations that affect

their lives and they don't get access to their balconies for a year. So... basically follow

your leases. That's the landlord Dream Unlimited, again, tries to portray itself as a very community

friendly landlord. They depend a lot on what's called ESG funding like loans. So environmental,

social and governance kind of funding. That's how it's a... It's one of those when you want

to like divest from fossil fuel and you want to invest in like, let's say, I don't know,

ethical funds. This is where these guys come in. And now we're trying to ruin that part

of their image. But so we met with them in April. They didn't concede to any of the demands.

When the Renstrike happened, first... We got to respond right away, like June 1st or 2nd,

they wrote back and said, hey, we're available to meet anytime. We said, okay, yeah, I can

meet, you know where we live. And then they suddenly they I think they wanted to test out

how many people were actually withholding rent So they went on like they hired a call center

to call through every apartment every day until they got them Hey, we're having you pay rent.

Oh, you haven't paid rent. We're having you pay rent, you know that kind of intimidation

Two weeks later. They couldn't be bothered going door-to-door No, because you know, they're

gonna get Mouthful they already got it on the phone. But So two or three weeks later, we

did have a meeting that was embarrassing because they exactly completely they came with their

community foundation person and she it was embarrassing because yeah, she basically didn't acknowledge

the core demand about fair rent. But also the kind of response was like, well, we're offering,

you know, a breakfast program in the community and that it's, you know, on Fridays. But you

know, sometimes as they say this, it's like, okay, you know, you can say, well, whatever,

some charity. But you know, we have a problem that sometimes people come with too many family

members and they take too much. So, you know, if you may not have noticed it because it runs

out fairly quickly. So on the other hand, they complain that people are taking too many granola

bars from those. So people have been meeting furious. And since then, we have not had actually.

any kind of positive response from them, just the statements that they put out in the media.

And they got on a pretty hard intimidation campaign that includes... So we have weekly canvases

where people... We share these strike bulletins that you can see here. So we basically tell

people, hey, this is what's going on. You know, this was happening. And every week there is

a collective canvas. Within the building or within the larger community? No, within the

building. Gotcha. from led by the tenants in the building. But we get security guards following

us. First they tried to stop the campers, he's saying that we cannot camp us. And we're like,

so we recorded it and we said, look, we are within our rights. If you insist on this, you

know, we're gonna take you, whatever, take you to court, which I don't know what we said.

They said, well, we're going to call the police for trespassing. OK, call them. Bring them

on. People live in this building. What are you going to do? Like, take them trespassing on

their own house? It's just ridiculous. And so it's actually, it's turned into somewhat of

a funny, it was very scary the first time, I think we stood our ground. People saw that

they were like, okay, wow, we can actually like security, you know, it's, this is all right.

Let's keep going. You know, I think that really encouraged people to the point that, you know,

after a few floors with the two or three security guards following people canvassing, they become

part of the conversation. You know, you're at the door, you're like, oh yeah, the landlord,

this is what they're doing, sending this guy. You know, and you have the security guard there

just like... Security guards are precarious tenants probably as well who get paid minimum

wage. So their empathy maybe not very obvious, but it's more with the tenants than with the

landlord. But they're still doing their job as security guards. I don't want to... They're

not allies. I just want to say that. They also see their precarity. But... In any case, I

think these kind of things tend to backfire because the other thing is one day they put

notice on every ten-an-hour rent strike on their parking lot, saying you're occupying a parking

lot that doesn't belong to you. If you don't remove it, we're gonna tow your car. And people

have parking in their leases and they've been using the same parking lot for many years.

So there was a resistance, everybody took back those notices to their office and said, if

you try to tow the car, we're going to start parking whatever we want. And you're going

to have a mess in your parking lot. And even the tenants are not on rest strike, I want

you to resolve this. You're not going to have enough tow cars to move. Anyways, they didn't

tow anyone's car. Basically, to the intimidation, we try to respond with collective responses.

Don't let people on their own just go to their office or message the landlord. Just let us,

you know, let everybody know. Let's respond collectively. How can we do it? You've emboldened

like, well, and each other, right? Not just you, Bruno, but what an emboldening process

to do within the community. Just all of these stories are just proof of people pushing back

in circumstances that they... may not have had they not had the collective power behind them

or just the examples that they've been afforded of other people being successful or at least

resistant. Because those are some serious harassment techniques. Like they've learned that from

Amazon and Starbucks. But it's a different, it seems a little easier as a tenant because

in that workplace, you wouldn't get away with that pushback. You know, like, well. Depends

on the numbers. I think there's for me, like the key and we tell this to everybody. Is the

strength in numbers. If if you have that, you can push back against so many things like and

in a workplace as well. I mean, I've been I've been on strike myself in my workplace. And

if you have the numbers, you can occupy your workplace. Stay there to live. and try to get

you out. But if you have the vast majority of people with you, it's very difficult for any

kind of authority. And of course there is intimidation, there's force, there's many things. But I do

think the strength in numbers what makes a difference. Had three tenants said, look, we're gonna just

park anywhere. Okay, three tow cars is easy. Can you tow 60 cars at the same time? No. I

wanted to ask, because you mentioned very early on about got you questions coming from unsympathetic

media. How has that response from the media been? How has that affected the organizing?

Also just a response from the general public people who are not a part of this. You know

what? I think it's been overwhelmingly positive. From the media, there's, I think, a very interesting

distinction. It depends on what role people play in the media. They may be tenants themselves.

They might have precarious jobs, and they're a producer that's very sympathetic to your

cause. So we had actually a lot of media attention and we build relationships as well with certain

journalists that we know, or producers who we know are, maybe not openly, but we know that

they're gonna give us a good perspective that we can go on. To be honest, since the actual

REN strike has started, we had a lot of media attention from all kinds of sources. What makes

me think is that this is an issue that kind of crosses the right and left media space.

And we had media that is very right wing covering the strikes in fairly positive view. Like I've

been surprised. media from the US that are like right wing media that has also covered the

strike and not because we've given them an interview just because they picked it up. That's what

we find out from just others. So that makes me think that it's an issue that it's really

a working class issue across the spectrum and that people are noticing and I think yeah,

there's a certain consensus. Unfortunately it's not on the political side, especially... I

think there's still a lot of work to do on parties of the left to come along. Don't even get me

started, Bruno. But we can have that discussion. But I think it is there. It is there at the

base. That's what we get a sense of. But it's very anecdotal. I don't know. I don't have

numbers just in case of, in terms of anything we put out on... on social media, people are

really supportive. Any articles that come out, we get messages now from the tenant union from

all over the country, people saying, not just tenants who want to do it themselves or who

are in similar situations, but people saying, hey, like my kids cannot afford their rent,

I'm a homeowner, but you know, this is very important. I think the most difficult issue

has been the landlord lobby and how they operate. And it's very similar to the 15 and fairness.

the minimum wage campaign when Loblaws will never come out publicly and say we cannot afford

a $15 minimum wage. They will always use... John runs a convenience store and if he had

to pay $15 he will go bankrupt. It's the same with the landlords. They actually never come

out themselves to any interview, the big corporate landlords. They always use the example of the

senior that rents their basement in order to be able to survive because without that rent

they just can't... They gotta pay their mortgage Bruno, right? Yeah. Olivia Chow is gonna unleash,

unharness their power as landlords. There is always that, I think there is a certain, so

I even think the senior landlord story, they haven't really come out much lately, is more

the young couple that depends entirely on their tenants to pay their mortgage. It's like they

have a divine right to, for their mortgage to be paid through the tenants. That is an unquestionable

thing in Canada. No, like I got a mortgage and I'm renting and these tenants are supposed

to pay for it. And if they do anything to jeopardize that... The Canadian dream is over for me.

You know, it's just like very tragic. Like, why, why should we, if your mortgage goes up,

I don't know, sell your house. Maybe you're not, why should it be on the backs of tenants

to pay for your wealth? You know, it's like the one, it's the one investment that people

would say that you're not allowed to lose any money on that. It always has to be making money

or else. Yeah. And worse is that often those stories, when you actually look at them in

more detail, it's always actually not just one family that rents their basement. house they

have is their investment property. You just, you know, look a little bit further and then

you find out that it's actually someone that maybe owns two or three houses who thought

that they were going to save themselves with these investments. Well, maybe that's not the

investment for you. I don't know. And all of it's to deflect from these corporate landlords

making 50% off of everybody's rent. Yeah. And that's so much more of the story too. Like

I... I live in Parto, when I walk around, you know, you see the same three, four companies

on the name outside of every building, on all of these buildings. And that's the vast majority

of the cases. I remember I read a really good article about the myth of the mom and pop landlord.

It's such a small percentage comparatively. I wanted to save real quick too about, you

know, I read this study recently from the Canadian Center for Policy Alternative about the one

bedroom rental wage, which is $33.62 in Toronto compared to the minimum wage of $15.50. So

like, it's very clear. I don't know exactly how people are affording rent. that the answer

I think overwhelmingly is people aren't and having to make incredible sacrifices. But the

organizing that you're doing and this example and what you're saying about crossing some

of those media barriers and the feedback that is so, so important for showing people that

they're not helpless when it comes. They don't just have to put up with this, this vast exploitation

that they have. options and resources and there's a way that they can fight back. And I just

wanted to thank you for providing that example because that is incredibly valuable. Thank

you, Santiago. Appreciate that. I do think it's... I don't want to exaggerate either on how big

this could become, you know, because I think that depends on capacity and structure and

it's not... an instantaneous, spontaneous thing that it's just going to happen because they

heard about it, right? Sometimes I wish, you know, that kind of thing would happen, but

no, the reality is that it takes a lot of organizing. But I do think, um, look, I can tell you 95%

of the people on RensStrike never thought they would take a decision like this. And I don't

know if they will walk back from such involvement. Like it's a life changing process, right? You're

like, wow, look, I can do this. Yeah, you know, there is that. And that's just like, you kind

of crossed a, you know, it's a big, big barrier that you cross from, I need to wait for things

to maybe happen and I have no control to, we can be, we can make change happen ourselves

as a collective. and I don't need to live an individual life. Like one of the most rewarding

thing for me when we have the canvases is the mixes of the teams. So we, especially, I mean,

both buildings are very diverse but just to give you an example, 33Kingly is a mix of people

from all backgrounds. But just how things have happened that the teams are mixed between people

that maybe you wouldn't have thought about, you know, a senior from... Sri Lanka with like

a white tenant from the US, suppose, you know, something like that, who are now buddies, who

now, you know, or like it's just this kind of connections that now start happening. So it's

one encouragement that I can change things, but also that, well, this is the community

that we can have. We don't need to live lonely lives. I hope that more people take that. It

is. You need to have someone to respond to those demands or some collective, some organization,

and I think that is something that I am mindful. Unfortunately, we, we all have day jobs and

we don't have the capacity to respond in a way we would like to, to every request that we've

had from people saying, Hey, how are you doing this? I want, if I was to do it myself, um,

what would I do? What should I start with? All of that. It would be amazing to have the time

and capacity to be able to follow up because then I do think it could balloon. And this

is also one of the reasons why Dream is probably not caving so far, because they are under a

lot of pressure from the landlord lobby not to concede, because they know that a lot is

at stake in this. And the same with PSP Investments in Thorncliffe Park. and they're probably banking

that they can hold out longer than you can maintain your momentum or your capacity levels. So how

can anybody listening help you? You can help in many different ways. So the first part I

think is if you're willing to help us. on our phone teams or on our canvassing teams. That

is amazing. We have groups of tenants regularly call through the building, especially checking

in with people. You don't need to be an expert in organizing. It's just about how's it going?

What have you heard from the landlord? So for that, we are always looking for help, for support

is always very helpful. It can be done from the comfort of your home. If you wanna come

to the community, more than welcome. With canvasses, we have canvasses every week. as well that

we invite people to participate. If none of these are options, making a donation is always

helpful. We have a strike fund at tenantunion.ca slash donate. We can share the link with the

show later. It's also important because it allows, we're a grassroots organization. We don't have

any core funding from anyone. We just basically print as we go what we can. That's mainly what's

happening. And then lastly, I would say perhaps the best way you can help us is organizing

your own place and, you know, hopefully when we win this, we can have many sessions with

many people to say, this is what is happening here. You know, what is your context and how

can we support you? Because I think organizing wherever you are. it's perhaps the best help

we could get more people going on strikes. Just keep in mind that you need the strength in

numbers. Don't do it on your own. Well, here's to hoping a lot of those big, huge unions who

are showing solidarity can maybe, you know, open up their pocketbooks a bit, because just

as important it is for Dream Unlimited to set an example for their lobbyist community, right,

for the landlords, they need to win this strike, folks, right? The resources need to be poured

into maintaining this strike so it can set the right example for strikes to come. That organizing

in your own building is really great too, but yeah, if you're listening and you can help

out this strike or you can help out the strike at Thorncliff, this is critical. this is critical

and I think that's why it's gained so much traction is because it's different than workplace strikes

and all the kudos to unions and I understand their importance. No one, no one's going to

doubt that here on the show, but those are sometimes not very tangible for people, right? The strikes

that happen don't often, unless you're part of them, that workplace, they don't often set

an example for you. It's usually very workplace specific, but like everyone's had a bad landlord.

Everyone is paying too much in rent. And no one really knows what to do about it. No one

thinks that they can fight back other than collect, go to the laundry room, complain. Like I've

gone to that stage. Most of us have and found the common ground. Right. The laundry room

is the organizing place. I'm telling you, I know I've been there. So we can all relate

to that. But it's just that seeing that fire lit finally out of the angst of all of these

renters. I think is really inspiring people. It's probably worrying the right people too,

which makes me even more excited. I would say, so one is that I do think there's a shift in

the labor movement and we've noticed it. We, I don't think when we started we thought we

would get these many unions out for a rally. We've also done it in a way that. It's also

valuable for them. We identify members. The way we contact these certain unions is because

their members are on strike in the building. That's how we did it. So I think there is a

shift there. I don't know how far it's going to go, but there is definitely something happening

there, no matter how good your collective bargaining agreement is. paying rent today, it's a big

issue. And unless you address it the other way, it's gonna be, you're gonna have to negotiate

30% increases in order to catch up. And the other thing is that I, this is part of the

history of our struggles around the world and in Canada. We had rent strikes. They've existed

for many, many years. Sometimes we focus too much on the early 1900 celebrations, but they

can happen, those things can happen again. And I think... We might be in a moment that it's

like that where a lot of people are using the place where they organize their homes as a

place where they organize just because of how precarious everything else is. And I'm hoping

that this is going to be just a motivation for everyone else. Surely, surely the more people

that hear about this, the more people you're going to see replicated. I can't thank you

enough, Bruno. This has been one of my favorite interviews because It was so uplifting. I am

filled with such feelings of hope after this conversation because it's not just the bad

landlords, which we can all relate to, but you talked about just building community in spaces

that sometimes have such difficulty doing that because the laundry room is not that cool to

hang out in. So it takes work. It takes work connecting people in apartment buildings to

and other forms of living. But I can't think. UNF, the folks that you're working with, and

for taking the time to then give our audience some blueprints on how to start their own tenant

union. So thank you very much. Thank you, Jess and Santiago. I mean, I've heard the postcards

before, so I feel like I'm... with the stars, chatting with the stars. So very happy to be

here and to follow up this conversation anytime we can. We know we're gonna keep, I encourage

everybody to follow the Tenant Union account on social media. This, we expect a lot of things

happening over the next two weeks. So just, we'll try to keep everybody posted on that.

That's great, Bruno. We'll be sure to link both your donation funds. your strike fund to the

show notes, as well as your socials and anything I can find that I think people should be pointed

towards so they can help you out, as well as the folks at Thorncliffe. Excellent. Thank

you so much. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for

joining us. Also, a very big thank you to the producer of our show, Santiago Halu-Quintero.

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