LA workers organize against capitalist profit system and slumlords

LENNOX, CA, November 13—Working class solidarity and  fightback around housing is  growing in this area of Los Angeles County. With the U.S. Supreme Court striking down the federal eviction moratorium, and state and local moratoriums already expired, or soon to, millions of workers nationwide are behind on rent or face imminent homelessness. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members are actively  organizing within  the local battle for the needs of our class. We are bringing communist ideas to this sharpening class struggle, such as the need for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalist property relations.

CHALLENGE readers will remember that PLP has been actively involved in the Lennox-Inglewood Tenants’ Union (LITU). LITU has spent the last year organizing and responding to tenants who contact the organization. Tenant complaints frequently involve threats of eviction, illegal rent increases, or slumlords who refuse to do even the most basic maintenance on the apartments they rent for exorbitant amounts of money.

As part of LITU’s campaign to demand repairs in one apartment complex in Inglewood, we asked local skilled workers to volunteer their time to inspect several of the apartments affected to determine what repairs each needed. It turned out that two workers who have experience doing repairs live in an apartment complex in Lennox, a predominantly immigrant and solidly working-class city right next to Inglewood.

Workers living in the Lennox building have long had problems with their slumlord, Nic Murillo, including illegal rent increases and demands that workers pay for repairs that are the landlord’s legal responsibility. With LITU’s encouragement and help, one worker experienced in home repairs launched a door to door canvassing of his complex. The purpose of this grassroots effort is to get to know our friend’s neighbors, find out more about the rotten living conditions they are enduring, and see what they want to do about them. These are communist principles in action - workers supporting one another - from each according to commitment and ability to each according to need.

Housing problems can’t be solved under capitalism
Given how, under capitalism, property laws put landlord profits first and tenant needs last, the results were not surprising. Workers  living in the building  had a myriad of problems. One worker  that LITU spoke to had just found out that her three-year-old son had lead in his blood. Many workers’ apartments had bed bugs and roaches. Some had carpets infested with them and showed us their children’s bite marks. Several apartments had pervasive mold. Two tenants had just received court eviction papers even though slumlord Murillo refused rent money for them from a government agency, and even though he had adamantly refused to make any necessary repairs to their apartments.

But LITU members found something else - a burning desire to strike back against these abuses, and an understanding that tenants are only as powerful as the collective working class unity that underlies their actions. Many workers signed a letter to their slumlord demanding a meeting about the lousy conditions. They promised support to the tenant families who face eviction. They came together for several meetings, involving almost half of the tenants in the complex, where grievances were aired and a plan for action made. This action revolved around the building manager’s stubborn refusal to give tenants receipts for their monthly rent payments.

After scummy Murillo learned of the tenant meetings, he began slithering around the complex promising some, but not all, needed repairs. But tenants are not fooled! This tactic was exposed at one of the meetings as an attempt by the landlord to divide and conquer.

Fired up workers confront landlord’s agent
On the evening of November 1 about 15 workers organized and gathered beforehand, before making  a beeline as a group to the manager’s apartment. The manager was presented with a statement to the landlord signed by the tenants demanding that, starting in December, if receipts were not given to all tenants who paid rent, then rent payments would be stopped and held until that policy is changed. The manager at first refused to take the letter, but then gave in to the tenants demand that he do so.

No less than eight tenants spoke up, including several who spoke for the group and made sure the manager understood the anger and determination of this group of organized workers.With support from other tenants, one tenant whose family had no hot water, pinned the manager down and made him promise immediate repairs. The manager kept blathering that he had to do what his boss, Murillo, told him to do. He told the tenants they should be meeting with the landlord directly (of course, the tenants had already demanded such a meeting and been blown off by the scumlord). The next day all of the tenants who paid rent got receipts!

Working class tenants need communist ideas and leadership
Though small, this action demonstrates the potential power of a conscious and united working class. PLP’s tasks going forward will be to continue our involvement with these tenants and help sharpen the level of struggle against the slumlord. In this battle, we will show how the capitalist legal and political system protects the owners of private property. Decent housing for the entire working class, and the abolition of evictions and homelessness can and will only be achieved under communism.