© British Association of Social Workers
Collective Action Among Private Tenants
Gerald Popplestone was Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the City of Birmingham Polytechnic. He then moved to the Birmingham Social Services Department, appointed to develop a Family Advice Centre. He is now Assistant Director of the Home Office Community Development Project in Newham
Summary
The paper describes the action of a group of low-income tenants, inexperienced in dealing with bureaucracies or in understanding the complexities of landlord-tenant law, who attempted to improve their living conditions by using the Government's Rent Tribunal
While the legal remedies provided under the Rent Acts were effective, the tenants were reluctant to use them until they had organized as a group. This was because of the particular relationship they had with the landlady who made it difficult for them to discuss with her their rights as tenants. Their only way of changing this was through collective action
We discuss the use of conflict strategies in a short-term issue; that is, in fighting a landlady for better living conditions (both lower rents and adequate repairs). It illustrates the difficulty of mobilizing a group of people whose ususal everyday experiences are that it is difficult, if not futile, to take action to improve their situation. This is so in spite of machinery set up by the Government to arbitrate over rents for private property. The difficulty lies in the precarious financial position in which deprived groups often find themselves, making it easy for them to fall into rent arrears and therefore be liable to eviction from their accommodation. It is difficult also because property owners are more likely to have easy access to the legal machinery. These tenants are usually in no position to hold a landlord to his side of the contract because they lack the resources to pay the legal fees entailed