This Friday afternoon, the question on the minds of many at the Ateneo La Maliciosa was whether everyone would fit in the room where the Tenants Union holds its weekly assembly. Minutes before, three of them greet visitors at the door of this bookstore in the Arganzuela district, very close to the Lavapiés neighborhood.
“Is this your first time?”
-Yes, we went to the demonstration the other day.
-It’s at the back on the right.
Those interested leave behind the counters where books with political content are mainly displayed. They are titles like About Cuba, Inequality in Spain, The Limits of Capital, or, in the children’s section, Anarchy explained to children.
The Chipko room, named after an Indian environmental movement, can seat about 50 people, but clearly it won’t fit everyone. There are no chairs for the attendees, who crowd at the entrance. Usually, around thirty people come to this assembly, the one on Friday afternoons, the most important of the week, but this is not just any Friday. It is the first Friday after the “resounding success” of the large demonstration for the right to housing last Sunday ―22,000 attendees, according to the Government delegation and 100,000, according to the Union―. Valeria Racú, the 29-year-old girl who was in charge of speaking for this association before the press that day, had called on the tenants to remind them that the fight had to continue the next day: “There are so many of us that if we organize ourselves we have much more power than any landlord or any politician,” he said before a swarm of microphones from the mainstream media. This Friday, Racú and his classmates enjoy seeing many new faces. The number of attendees will force them to activate plan B, taking the assembly to a nearby plaza.
“We are going on an excursion,” announces Carol Vilariño, a 26-year-old union member. “This is super good news.”
It was foreseeable that the room would overflow because during the week they had not stopped receiving messages from interested parties, by email or online. They have written to them from Madrid, but also from other cities in Spain where people who have just discovered the union want to set up a similar group. Interest had already skyrocketed in the weeks leading up to the demonstration. They say that since the beginning of September they have added about 10,000 followers on X (formerly Twitter) up to 36,600, and about 12,000 on Instagram, up to 22,400.
About a hundred people, the vast majority looking between 20 and 40 years old, join the excursion. Five minutes later they have completely occupied a staircase in Peñuelas Park where they take a seat, next to the merriment of children enjoying the swings on a cool and peaceful autumn afternoon. Veteran activists take turns at the microphone to welcome them. They talk about the meaning of joining this battle – “This is an unequal fight and when the landlords see that a tenant is not alone, suddenly she doesn’t feel like she has so much power” – and about the strengths of their enemy – “We fight against powerful entities.” who have the telephone number of the councilor or minister on duty”―.
Vilariño introduces the most important topic on the agenda, the rent strike. The union has been mulling over the idea of promoting a massive civil disobedience action for a long time as a way to beat the landlords. His distrust of politicians has gone in crescendo since they were born in 2017, while they have gained citizen support. They are confident that if thousands of tenants coordinate simultaneously to rebel against their landlords, paying only what they consider a fair price, they could bring down prices. “You know that only we can lower them because no one else is going to lower them,” explains Vilariño while they sit attentively listening. “We also know that there is no legal framework for the strike. It is something that must be assumed, which would be illegal, but legitimate. Historically we have had to commit illegalities to change and transform things.”
Activists do not have a date for this strike. They admit that they need to be many more to have an effect. Vilariño talks about 20,000 during his speech. Others believe that it is enough to reach a few thousand. The union has, according to its figures, more than 1,300 members, who pay dues of up to 20 euros per month. To take advantage of the wave of interest, the day after the demonstration they began to prepare a database with the data of new supporters. They fill out an online form under the motto: Join the rent strike. This Friday there were already more than 300 registered.
During the week, the strike has been the star issue of the unionists. It filled them with joy that it was talked about in the political gathering of Hormiguero: “Now they are proposing to go on a rent strike, that is, not pay the rent,” said the writer Rosa Belmonte. “But what wild country is this?” In a tweet, the Union responded: “When you dare to have a wild debate, send us a DM (direct message)😘”
For unionists, these comments in areas they consider hostile are a sign of their new influence. Corral La Torre, a 29-year-old student, speaks for many when she says: “After the brutal demonstration, there is desire. We all leave with the feeling that we have the power. “Fear has changed sides.”
However, unionists still have to overcome their own fear of striking. Vilariño asks the assembly members to divide themselves into groups of about ten or fifteen people to introduce themselves and talk about what stops them from stopping paying. They talk about the fear of running into their landlord at the fruit shop, or of being kicked out by the police, or of not being able to renew their contract… A neighbor with a gray beard who is walking through the park stops to watch the groups doing politics in the street and remembers the times of 15-M in which he participated. “This housing thing has many vested interests,” he says. “It’s very screwed up.”
While observing the discussion groups, Racú celebrates the success of attendance: “That a hundred people are thinking this on a Friday at eight in the afternoon is a wake-up call,” he says. “Each new step is going to be a bigger step until one day we say, ‘Tomorrow we won’t pay anymore.’” They do not have new demonstrations in Madrid on the horizon, but they will follow with interest the support of new protests in other cities: in Valencia this Saturdayin Malaga on November 9 and in Barcelona on November 23. For now, as they assess how much muscle they’ve gained and how much more they need, union members are enjoying their sweet moment.
“If there are thousands of us, there are not enough pieces of wood to get you out of your house,” one shouts into the microphone, and the rest applaud.
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