KC Tenants announced this week that the organization has become a founding member of the Tenant Union Federation, a "union of unions" that hopes to help organizers across the country and advocate for federal rent protections.
Multiple organizers with KC Tenants have taken on leadership roles within the Federation. Tara Raghuveer, a director and founder of KC Tenants, is now the director of TUF.
She said the Federation has been in the works for a long time.
“The organizations involved in starting the Federation have been in a relationship for years,” said Raghuveer. “But the group itself got going in early April and our leadership team convened in June of this year.”
Outside of KC Tenants, the other founding unions of TUF include Louisville Tenants Union (Louisville, KY), Connecticut Tenants Union (Connecticut), Not Me We (Chicago, IL), and Bozeman Tenants United (Bozeman, MT).
Each member union held an internal election to decide whether or not they would join the Federation. Raghuveer said the decision to cap the number of unions at five came largely from an inconsistency in organizing tactics.
She said the Federation would prioritize finding a way to standardize an approach to organizing.
“We want to get really aligned about our theory of power and our methodology for building tenant unions,” she explained. “Today, we don’t have a widespread and consistent practice of tenant organizing that meets the needs of the moment. That’s what we’re trying to build.”
Raghuveer said that TUF does plan to begin looking at expanding membership of the Federation in 2025. In the meantime, TUF organizers are working to build a training program for tenants across the country.
Jenay Manley, another KC Tenants organizer and member of TUF’s national leadership team, says the program is meant to help create some of that consistency in organizing practices and support the growth of unions with less organizing experience.
“[The program] helps learn the nuts and bolts of organizing,” Manley said. “Other people, other unions across the country can join even if they’re not currently in the Tenant Union Federation.”
Manley is one of two KC Tenants members who sit on the national leadership team. Each member union has two representatives on the team.
She said now that TUF has publicly announced its existence, the leadership team and other national staff will focus on a national campaign pushing for tenant protections, such as rent caps, at the federal level.
Raghuveer believes that pushing for such federal protections will be the main focus of TUF for the foreseeable future.
“That’s a big focus of the Federation in the next several months and years ... actually winning rent regulation at the federal level” she said. “Then hopefully supporting tenant protections and rent regulation and alternatives to the current market at every level.”
