[In less than two weeks, the Blake Street 16 went from facing
eviction court to pioneering the first landlord-tenant negotiations in
Connecticut’s history.]
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HOW A TRAILBLAZING TENANTS UNION FORCED A MEGA-LANDLORD TO THE
BARGAINING TABLE  
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Thomas Birmingham
December 8, 2023
In These Times
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_ In less than two weeks, the Blake Street 16 went from facing
eviction court to pioneering the first landlord-tenant negotiations in
Connecticut’s history. _

Hundreds of protesters march toward Ocean Management's office in
support of the Blake Street 16 at a rally on August 30. , Thomas
Birmingham

 

NEW HAVEN, CONN. — Things looked bleak on Blake Street when, at
around 3:30 p.m. on August 19, Jessica Stamp and 15 of her neighbors
found eviction notices taped to their door. 

Ocean Management, Stamp’s landlord and one of New Haven’s most
powerful companies, seemed intent on getting her out. But 13 days
later, on Sept. 1, Ocean called off the evictions and came to the
bargaining table to negotiate the first agreement of its kind between
a landlord and tenants in Connecticut. 

In those 13 days, a local tenants union realized just how powerful
they’d become. 

GOING AGAINST ​“GOLIATH”

Ocean is one of New Haven’s largest landlords, owning roughly 300
New Haven properties containing approximately 1,000 units. The company
is notorious for frequent appearances in housing court
[[link removed]]:
Tenants’ complaints have resulted in the city’s housing agency
issuing thousands of code violations
[[link removed]].
According to an analysis of city records I conducted for the _New
Haven Independent_
[[link removed]],
as of August, Ocean allowed nearly 94% of its rental licenses to
expire, substantially diminishing any chance these properties would be
inspected for safety and quality. 

A representative for both Ocean and the company’s owner, Shmuel
(Shmulik) Aizenberg, declined to comment for this story.

The evictions came at a stressful, uncertain time for the union.
A few weeks prior, Ocean lit the fuse that would eventually spark the
evictions by beginning to call the residents of Elizabeth Apartments,
the 70-unit building in which BSTU is based, to tell them their rent
was going up 20 to 30%. These increases ranged from $220 to as high as
$285, according to internal data collected by the union, all but
guaranteeing some residents would be displaced. Among those affected
were seniors, tenants on fixed income and multiple disabled tenants,
including Michael Portee, an intellectually disabled man with
epilepsy, who was hit with a $250 increase.

“We went into a panic because he works but his paycheck is not
enough to afford rent,” says Marcia Tourangeau, Portee’s sister
and caretaker, who lives across the street from the property. “[The
rent increase] would be a devastating blow to him. Why would you do
that to him, to anybody in the building? It’s not fair — to
him or to anybody like him. Not caring if he’s going to be able to
get a place or be on the street.” 

The rent increases were the catalyst for the first real battle for
BSTU, a one-year-old tenant union founded by labor organizer and
Elizabeth tenant Sarah Giovanniello, which had, thus far, mainly
managed housing inspections and taken Ocean to court for code
violations. Its building-wide capabilities had not yet been tested. 

As each rent hike call from Ocean came in, BSTU helped tenants file
a complaint with New Haven’s Fair Rent Commission
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(FRC), which was created as an outlet for tenants to contest unfair or
undue rental costs. In 2022, it became the agency tenant unions must
go through to obtain official recognition from the city, which allows
them to file rental complaints collectively and opens a pathway to
collective bargaining
[[link removed])-,Sec.,rules%2C%20regulations%2C%20and%20procedures.].
Filing a complaint freezes potential rent increases until the
commission determines if they are warranted. The union’s goal, aside
from blocking the increases, was to force Ocean to bargain.

“We are asking for you to come to the table and negotiate in order
to come up with a plan that’s not going to destroy us,”
Stamp said.

On the off chance Ocean would negotiate, the union members started
gathering to brainstorm what they wanted to see in their
leases — on top of no exorbitant rent increases, of course. The
first such meeting began in July in a back lot of the Elizabeth
Apartments’ red-brick complex with members writing ideas on
a whiteboard. Roughly 15 were present, some reclining on the
building’s cement porch stairs, some setting up lawn chairs and
sporting big red umbrellas. It had just started to rain.

Members of Blake Street Tenants Union took notes on what they hoped to
see in a new lease during a rainy meeting in July. Photo by Thomas
Birmingham

The whiteboard started to fill up with phrases like ​“no
union-busting language” and ​“no hidden costs + fees.” By far
the most frequent voice came from John Raccio, a mailman who had
moved into the building approximately nine months prior. Knowing the
precedent BSTU could set, Raccio was determined: ​“We need
language on every possible thing.” Even as the evening wore on, even
as the rain kept coming and even as the writing on the board began to
fade into illegibility thanks to the water, the group’s ideas
kept coming. 

As these deliberations began, the looming possibility of FRC
intervention finally got Aizenberg’s attention. In late July, he got
in touch with the union. He wanted to meet.

So on July 21, Stamp and Giovanniello found themselves across the
table from Aizenberg — who, prior to this, had not recognized
the union’s existence. It didn’t go well: ​“Aizenberg was
threatening us,” Stamp told _In These Times_ a few hours afterward.
​“He’s like, ​‘There’s no need to go over to the Fair Rent
Commission. I was ready to evict you.’”

As the meetings continued in a stalemate, with the union holding
strong against the rent increases, Giovanniello was acutely aware of
their uncertain standing in contrast to labor union negotiations.
Employers are required to bargain in good faith with unions; in
Connecticut, and most of the country, landlords are not. This makes
BSTU’s pursuit of a list of bargaining demands much
trickier — and means more risk.

“I mean, supposedly they’re open to negotiating with us,”
Giovanniello told _In These Times_ skeptically in late July, as the
meetings continued. ​“We’ll see how that plays out.”

THE 13-DAY FIGHT

Giovanniello soon got her answer. On August 19, rather than negotiate
over the rent hike, Ocean followed through on its threat and issued
the 16 eviction notices, which stated that tenants had until September
1 to leave voluntarily. That was day one. 

BSTU, energized by two months of unity in fighting the rent increases,
sprung into action. On day four, after the notices, they held a press
conference alongside New Haven’s mayor, demanding Ocean call the
evictions off. On day nine, they filed a lawsuit and injunction
against Ocean for illegal retaliation. And on day 11, they held a
​“March for Tenant Power” — the biggest tenant movement
demonstration in the city to date. 

Sarah Giovanniello shakes New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker's hand at a
Blake Street Tenant Union press conference on August 23. Photo by
Thomas Birmingham

The rally was organized under the banner of the Connecticut Tenants
Union [[link removed]] (CTTU), a growing statewide
network of renters, led by Hannah Srajer, the group’s president.
BSTU is one of 14 local CTTU chapters. In the flex of the community
power CTTU has managed to build, speakers at the event included the
state legislature’s entire New Haven delegation, SEIU’s former
executive director Kooper Caraway and even U.S. Senator Richard
Blumenthal (D-Conn.). After the crowd of over 300 marched the five
blocks from New Haven City Hall to Ocean Management’s main office,
they plastered the door with mock eviction notices directed at the
landlord attempting to displace them.

All were there in solidarity with the group that calls itself the
Blake Street 16.

“We were marching down the street, everyone’s chanting, and I’m
crying,” Stamp said. ​“It hit me when I was watching all of
these people come out for the Blake Street 16. When Blumenthal was
talking [at the rally] about how these people shouldn’t be evicted,
I was like, _I _am those people. Like, this is me!”

Less than 48 hours after that show of solidarity, Ocean offered BSTU
a historic deal: They rescinded all evictions in favor of a signed
agreement that made the collective bargaining process official through
December 5. In just 13 days, the union forced Ocean from eviction
court to the negotiating table.

For Srajer, this win demonstrates tenant unions’ necessity. She
imagines a city in which all rental buildings are unionized,
envisioning what they might do with that level of grassroots
infrastructure. In her day-to-day work as CTTU’s elected leader, she
seeks to generate and replicate wins like BSTU’s and keep sharing
the tenant-union vision from renter to renter, from building to
building, from town to town. 

“Every single person in that property has the ability to organize if
they so desire,” Srajer said. ​“What the tenant union is also
doing is rebuilding that tradition of organizing as a skill and
a practice and a methodology that is available to everyone who feels
compelled to fight.”

“WE’RE ON THE RIGHT PATH”

BSTU’s organizing has also caught the attention of tenant leaders at
the national level. 

Tara Raghuveer, the Homes Guarantee campaign director at People’s
Action and a leader of the multithousand-member tenant union in
Kansas City, Mo., earlier this year penned ​“The Case for the
Tenant Union
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call for tenants to respond to the untenable housing crisis through
unflinching union organizing. In her view, the efforts of the likes of
Stamp, Giovanniello and Srajer not only answer that call but serve as
a model for tenants across the country.

“I really think the tenant union needs to be for poor and
working-class people in the 21st century what a labor union was for
poor and working-class people in the 20th century,” Raghuveer said.
​“And I think it will be. This victory in New Haven is emblematic
of a new and renewed clarity that tenants have about the type of
fight they’re in, which is really a fight for their lives.”

With the evictions rescinded, BSTU is looking to their next
fight — negotiating for the best lease possible, thereby setting
the stage for the future of tenant organizing across Connecticut.
Though the particulars of the lease — including how much, if at
all, the building’s rent will increase — remain in flux,
Giovanniello has nonetheless shaken off some of the uncertainty she
had felt for so long.

“People feel more confident, and I think more secure, in their
decision to act collectively,” she said. ​“So let’s see how
far we can take this.”

For proof, look no further than Raccio, who at 27 years old has
become an elected member of the first tenant negotiating team in
Connecticut. When asked if he experiences any self-doubt about the
union or his work within it, he said the only choice is to keep
looking forward.

“This is unprecedented territory as far as the United States
goes,” Raccio said. ​“Regardless of which way the language [of
the collective lease] is written, neither party really knows what the
result is going to be. So the fact that we’ve been able to blindly
navigate our way this far makes me think that we’re on the
right path.”

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Thomas Birmingham [[link removed]]
is a reporter in New Haven and an intern at _In These Times. _He has
previously written for The Appeal_, _the_ Louisville Courier-Journal
_and the_ New Haven Independent. _

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Reprinted with permission from _In These Times_
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All rights reserved. 

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* Tenants Rights; Housing Activism ; Blake Street Tenants Union;
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