Rent Strikes and the Law: The Limitations of the Ann Arbor Experience

Abstract

The experience of the Ann Arbor rent strikers, as revealed by the preceding article, should be noted with interest by tenant union organizers throughout the country. These tactical uses of the law can stimulate local organizers to think of new ways to use the law to further their efforts in their own communities. It is important to examine, however, factors peculiar to the Ann Arbor situation that tend to make those tactics less universally applicable than might be expected. These peculiarities should be especially important to organizers of low-income tenant organizations in slum neighborhoods. First, the Ann Arbor rent strikers were mostly middle-class college students. This accounts for one of the strongest weapons of the ·strikers, their masses.