Rev Left Radio - OTU Under Attack by Landlord Lobby

Episode Date: June 21, 2025

In this episode, Breht welcomes on Seth from Omaha Tenants United for an in-studio discussion about OTU's slate of recent successes organizing several tenant unions, and a subsequent new legal assault on the organization by the local landlord lobby. The legal implications of this attack are truly monumental for virtually all forms of organizing. They also discuss how landlordism is a feudal hangover with modern capitalist dynamics, the differences between tenant organizing and labor organizing, tenant organizing as a particularly potent site of struggle, and the material underpinnings of recent superstructural shifts in many people's views of landlords. Local media interviews Seth on the issue: https://www.3newsnow.com/central-omaha/omaha-tenants-united-faces-allegations-of-unauthorized-practice-of-law OTU's Drake Court Tenant Union (Local 252) covered in local media: https://www.3newsnow.com/central-omaha/drake-court-tenants-unite-to-demand-better-living-conditions-from-property-management Increasing number of renters turning to tenant unions in the Omaha metro: https://www.wowt.com/2025/01/25/increasing-number-renters-turning-tenant-unions-omaha-metro/ Fed up tenants: Renters form unions to hold leasing companies accountable: https://www.ketv.com/article/omaha-renters-form-unions-to-hold-leasing-companies-accountable/62684760   ---------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio: https://revleftradio.com/

All right, everybody, today we have back on the show, Seth from Omaha Tenets United. He's been on the show several times throughout the years. In fact, I saw you go on Black Red Guard recently, and people were confusing you with me and OTU with Rev Left. Obviously, those are different entities, but I mean, I appreciate and like the connection that people immediately draw between us. obviously, you know, friends, comrades locally do a lot of organizing work together and have, honestly, for many years at this point. Um, shit, going back to

2017, 16, yeah. Something like that. You don't even have like similar voices, though. Like, you've got some big fans out there. They say, I sound like you. Absolutely. I think probably somebody just heard O-TU and they think RLR and then they don't really

listen to the show or something and just, I don't know how you confuse us, but it's fine. I accept it. Anyways, welcome to the show. Again, um, for those that don't know OTCU, do you want to kind of talk about it and maybe even update people on some more recent successes that your organization has had? Yeah, certainly. So yeah, what up y'all? I'm Seth, co-founder and co-chair of Omaha Tenants United. We started back in 2018, largely, started out, you know, mainly just helping individual tenants or small groups of tenants

directly confront their landlord to force them to make changes or repairs that they had been failing to do and forcing them to like give money back that we do or try to steal by double charging for rent or um you know just simple deposit robbery um had a lot of success with that and then you know fortunately in the past year or so we've really been able to scale things up to where actually have been forming larger scale tenant unions um so we were able to successfully established Nebraska's very first tenants union last year in June or July I want to say and then quickly after that we had four more fall into line one of the probably the most notable one of those status act tenants union who is owned by the one company which is probably Omaha's

largest landlord it's actually who I rent from too um And that was a resounding success. We were able to get the president of the company and multiple other representatives in a room to engage in Nebraska's first tenant-based collective bargaining negotiations. And we had, I would say, nearly every demand met. You know, there was a couple that we knew we weren't going to get that you kind of throw in there for the sake of throwing in there. But overall, you know, that was a big step forward for Nebraska tenants because even though the tenants unions prior to that did succeed in getting a lot of the demands met, we never actually were able to get the landlords to sit down. So to be able to engage that negotiation process was a huge step forward and a big learning lesson for, you know, tenants everywhere here. Yeah, so, I mean, you know, genuinely wild success for, you know, Nebraska's first now five tenant unions is a huge thing.

Being able to advance the ball for tenants in the city of Omaha in particular has been, you know, such a beautiful thing to see develop over the years. And your success is exactly why you are now meeting this incredible legal assault on your very, on the foundations of your, of your, very existence, which we'll get to in a second. That's kind of the purpose of this show is, okay, there's been years of organizing. That years of organizing has led to genuine successes in the form of several now tenant unions officially, collectively bargained with landlords, advancing the ball in so many ways, and now you're seen as a real material threat to the profit maximization of local landlord companies and small landlord tyrants.

And so now you have to be assaulted and attack. and you have to be undermined and destroyed by the landlord lobby and those interests, which, again, we'll get into here in one second. But before we do, I also wanted to talk quickly about our night school program. As many of you may know, local community organizers here, you know, we've been close comrades for many years, have worked together to create, and we just finished up a six-week political education program centered around teaching people, you know, the critique of political economy, Marxist, you know, historical materialism, history

of socialist revolutions, tenant organizing, eco-socialism, and then like visions and horizons of the future. Like, what can we build out of that? And that was a six-week program. People entered, you know, were served amazing food. Every Tuesday we'd meet for about two hours, two and a half hours. And we'd have group discussions. Many different organizations were represented. I taught two of the classes. You taught two of the classes. Critique of political economy and, of course, tenant organizing with O.T.U. running that session. What are your thoughts on it looking back now that it's over and what do you think about it going forward? Oh, man. I mean, I think it was a great experiment. You know,

we had something like, what, 40 students, which is incredible. Coming back every week? Yeah, every single week, too. I mean, I think there's only maybe two or three that fell off. So it was great to see people eager to learn to, you know, try to enrich their understanding of politics. And, you know, it really just like speaks to me, too, I think, and I feel like this trend has kind of died down over the past couple years, but, you know, for a long time in particular, there's been like a real sort of anti-intellectualism, sort of anti-theory strain amongst the particularly American left. It's just, you know, there's a million reasons for that.

But, you know, it's a, and a lot of that, I think, too, is a lot of self-projection from others, not necessarily where the majority, how the majority of people view this stuff. And so it was really encouraging to see, you know, that just, like, desire to learn to engage with difficult theory and, you know, really try to put effort into understanding what are on their face difficult concepts but you know I think they're largely and what night school really proved to me too I think is you know they're only difficult because it's largely like a new vocabulary and you have to kind of adjust your what you previously take for granted the the concepts in and of themselves I really don't think are all that complicated and if and I mean what more

proof do you need then they've inspired millions of people the world over to illiterate people at that, to take them up. So, you know, I just love to see the thirst to learn to engage with stuff that's outside of people's normal comfort zone and try to, like, push themselves to deepen their understanding of politics and put that in practice. So I thought it was a really great experience. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more.

I liked the age range of people, right? It wasn't just one cohort. It was a genuine diversity of, you know, young people to, to older people. So I loved that aspect of it. It was challenging for me and I'm probably as well for you in the teaching position, right? Yeah. Because it's like there's one thing to teach like over a podcast, but to be in a classroom setting,

week in and week out and to try to craft basically a lesson plan that is both challenging enough for people to, you know, be challenged and be pushed a little bit and strive and struggle to understand, but also accessible enough that a broad audience, some of whom have very little understanding of this stuff, can also interact with it and learn from it. And I think, you know, I would make some tweaks in retrospect. And if we're going to try to run this program again for different cohorts going forward, I would make some tweaks. But overall, I was, I was very happy with how it turned out. I was very happy with the teaching that I did. And that I saw from, you know, fellow organizers.

And I loved, I just love the, my favorite part of teaching is after the lecture is given and there's open questions. And you just see people raise their hands, ask really insightful, penetrating questions, generate organic discussion amongst each other, being able to go back and forth with different, like, basically like students and hearing what they're getting out of the lesson and then shift over to a totally different interpretation or lesson, you know, extraction that somebody else is pulling. That back and forth is so fun. And that's, that for me is where that, like, that I felt in my stomach that, like, fire for teaching. Like, I fucking love this, you know,

not just the lecturing, but the back and forth. So that was, that was really cool. And I really do hope that we, we can continue running the program. Yeah, totally. And I think it's probably a challenge for you to, I mean, I think the two of us probably had some of the most difficult. content to try to condense down and there's always that like you know when you know a lot about a topic it feels like whatever you're saying is not not expanding you're not getting enough right right and i should have mentioned this there's this nuance i didn't get to yeah and in reality you know this is all for a lot of the people that are completely new stuff and so like having to realize like what your standard of like being as complete in accounting for every like

little like well but this is you know there's there's an exception to this like you got like a to have the discipline to you got to get the general rules down and even though those may not be the whole story you got to be content with that's part of the learning process and I know that was a big challenge for me teaching the political economy part because it's like at first you know we were basically trying to cover capital one through three in 30 minutes and we decided that's that's not going to happen so we like skilled it back. to basically only covering the content of Capital One and even that in an incredibly abridged fashion.

And it was extremely challenging for me to do it in a way that I felt was doing the material justice while at the same time being accessible. But I think both of us ended up doing a pretty damn good job of that. And the feedback surveys that were pretty extensive after every session and then after the program as a whole really gave interesting insight into that and yeah it was really rewarding to read people be like like on for example me doing the historical materialism the whole history of humanity leading up to now and then into the future um and people being like it was very clear that for some people that was the first time they grasped the evolution of human society like that that

they saw capitalism as an ephemeral stage not as a naturalized permanent state and and yeah like breaking through in that way is incredibly rewarding but yeah you know you're balancing like your own standards of what is a complete and exhaustive telling of that and what is actually accessible and needed for people first engaging with it and like you know one of the decisions I had to make is with Marxist theory like do I need to go into dialectical materialism I decided for this round I don't I think it would be too much too soon to have to go into that broader philosophical framework and I obviously pointed people to resources if they were interested in going deeper but I think sticking to historical material materialism was important in extracting a few lessons like capitalism is ephemeral you know the contradictions mean that this system is fundamentally unsustainable i think those are more important than like here's a worldview and a way of apprehending reality i thought that got too abstract so i left it aside but it hurt to leave it aside right stuff like that so i mean i think good philosophy comes from good politics and not the other way around so i think it's appropriate to do it in that way building up from yeah like the historical material And you get the nuances of the philosophical foundation out of which it is easier to think in those philosophical terms when it comes time to engage with them because now you've already unconsciously applied them to real stuff. And you kind of look at it in that way. That's a good point. Yeah, that's a good point.

So, yeah, overall, great success. We have some other organizations already reaching out to kind of get a blueprint on how they can run a similar thing. And people that don't need the blueprint, but just take inspiration and do their own version of it. it very cool to see so yeah overall great success very happy that it that it went down and I look forward to future iterations of it but let's go ahead and move into the issue at hand which is the assault that O TU has come under in the face of multiple successes and an overall momentum in the city building tenant power in a real tangible and material way can you talk about what you've

now been dealing with the new things that have happened, the attack by the more or less landlord lobby, just kind of explain the overall issue for people who have no clue what's going on? Yes. I'll ask that you all be patient with me because it's, it frankly doesn't make sense. So that's why it's so hard to explain, because we're also very much so in the dark here. So I'll do my best to summarize here. So starting, I would say, in December of last year, we first received a letter after we had sent off a demand letter on behalf of an individual tenant, because their problem was particularly pressing.

And in the meantime, we were organizing the building as a whole with the goal of turning that into a tenants union, which we successfully did. That was, in fact, the Tattisac Tenants Union that I mentioned earlier. And we had sent off this demand letter for the first woman involved, and we were immediately hit with a letter back from their lawyer saying, her name is Tara Holterhouse, their lawyer, saying that they would not be engaging with us and that she believed we're practicing law without a license and that they would be reporting us to the Council of Discipline slash the unlicensed practice of law commission, which is our best understanding is some sort of division of the Nebraska Supreme Court. And we, you know, we sought advice of an attorney at that time on

how to respond, and he obviously thought we were in the clear, and he gave us some case law to reference, which we did and very pointively showed, you know, here's some examples from Nebraska history of like how something like a tenant's union, you know, obviously there's not this specific example, but like we believe these apply and, you know, basically go fuck yourself. And we thought that was that. It shut her up. She did not respond. The tenant got everything repaired. We successfully established a tenant's union there. And like I mentioned earlier, that was the same tenant's union where the president of the company sat down to engage. in collective bargaining negotiations with us.

And the president of the company herself even admitted there because she was distressing about how it had to get to this point. And we're like, well, you know, you guys sicked a lawyer on us with like retaliatory threats that were completely baseless. And even she right there in person acknowledged that should not have happened and that was inappropriate. So we, you know, we did not think twice about this. We thought we had figured out the magic, here's the words to say, to shut this down, is all good.

However, we then proceeded to, at a building we organized a couple months later, when we're successful in establishing attendance union there, received a similar letter from their council. We sent off the same response, and, you know, nothing really happened. So again, we thought, okay, this works. And not a month later, it was the first week of eight, first week end of April, we received a letter from the unlicensed practice of law commission stating that we believe you are practicing law without a license. And it asked us to sign off on a consent decree to make it go away, basically saying, we will not organize tenants anymore, we will not attempt to like represent their interests

or anything, really just basically signing away like the org's existence. We'll stop. Yeah. And this will go away. And we're obviously like, well, that's just not happening. So we of course obtained legal counsel and we submitted our appeal as of Tuesday of this week, the 29th. But the interesting and really bizarre stuff here to get a little more into the nitty degree is, like, first of all, to reiterate, there was no rationale or reasoning that they provided us as to how they came to this decision. They simply included four or five demand letters that we had issued from over the years.

I mean, I think some of them were going back to, like, 2022 from various different landlords, too. And, you know, of course in our demand letters, we cite laws sometimes. I mean, like, if somebody's washing a machine or heat is off for six months, I mean, we obviously say that that is extremely illegal. And here's where it explicitly says that you cannot do that. That shouldn't be practicing law. That's asserting your rights as a citizen. But that's all they gave us was these demand letters. and no further rationale whatsoever.

And what we've come to find was that the original complaint apparently was lobbed in September of last year. So we believe it was probably prompted by one of the attorneys who works for elevate living, where we were first able to establish tenant unions at. But then it wasn't voted on until January. and then we were not notified that they had voted that they found us practicing law without a license until April. So it's a really bizarre, like, six-month timeline.

And the reason I mentioned that, too, is because, and we'll get more into, like, the deeper implications of this stuff later. But, you know, you kind of have to wonder, too, if there's, like, a political timing to it, if they felt more comfortable with the Trump administration coming in, maybe that like this is something that there's a better environment for these type of what you know is essentially a slap lawsuit to go through I don't know I can only speculate but in any case one of the the members of the UPL commission the unlicensed practice of law commission is that

very same Tara Holterhouse who has gone after us and that wasn't the only time she's gone after us too I mean that was the most notable example she's attempted to harass and threaten us before she's a member of that committee. And she's also one of the most prominent, the most prominent, I would say, landlord attorneys and lobbyists in the state of Nebraska. You know, she was just up at the Nebraska state legislature in January, arguing against a bill that would grant more tenant rights.

A portion of that was to give tenants the rights to have a, you know, trial and eviction proceedings. And she argued against, this is just leader, Chris, she argued against that on the basis of it would take too much time and resources because I've filed 200 evictions in the past month alone. Oh my gosh. So this is the type of person who we're expected in part to answer to, apparently. And what a thing to dedicate your life to? I'm going to be a cutthroat attorney for the landlords and try to, I mean, it's just despicable. Yeah, I mean, it's like the only thing worse than a parasite is.

somebody who apparently feeds off of that parasite. Yeah, it's like insane. But so... But to be clear, she's an attorney for landlords, obviously, and she's also on the unlawful practice of law commission that would be... That is charging us with this. That is charging you and would be also the board that decides, unless you take it to a higher legal entity?

That process is pretty opaque, but essentially, yes. They would, after our appeal, they would decide what they have decided. And, you know, we're now appealing it. And if they affirm their decision, we would have to, we think, appeal it to the Nebraska Supreme Court or the attorney general. You have to go above them. Yes. But she's a part of this commission that is, yeah. Yeah.

And, yeah, it seems to me from a very, you know, lay person's perspective that they're, I mean, obviously we know the corruption embedded in this entire system. But, yeah, a deep conflict of interest where you're. representing landlords, but then you're also on this ostensibly objective commission that's just supposed to call balls and strikes with regards to whether or not you're practicing law legally or not, that this has now been weaponized towards landlord interest and against tenant interests. Well, more importantly, too, it's a commission that is supposed to exist to, like, defend vulnerable people from being taken advantage of by people who, you know, are either quacks or getting people into dangerous situations. You know, this is something that's largely

for the most part used when there's like bogus immigration law attorneys or like somebody is drafting up contracts on behalf of another saying like I you know I know how to do this and it's not actually like a legally binding thing at all or people practicing trying to practice family law for you know their friends or whatever um so you know it the fundamental purpose of the committee is a good one and that it's supposed to to protect people who might be ignorant to the law or, you know, are susceptible to being taken advantage of by people who want to swindle and, you know, do things that are irresponsible. And to see it flipped on its head like this is, in this deeply politicized way that the commission

has never been used before is really, really troubling. It's insane. Yeah, absolutely. But the basic premise here, and we can get into some of the implications. The basic premise, as far as I can tell, is that asserting and organizing around your already existing rights is now being framed by this commission and this lawyer

as unlawfully practicing law. So that is to say that if you, as just a person or an organization, say, hey, pointing to the legal law book or the Constitution or whatever, say, these are my rights. And in fact, I'm going to make sure that you follow those. rights because I have them already entrenched in law, that by pointing towards the law that already exists and saying, these are my rights, that you are now pretending to be a lawyer or unlawfully practicing law.

Can you talk about, well, let me give a quick example. It would be like, and I want to talk about the implications, maybe you have a better example, but it's like if you get pulled over by the cops and maybe I'll take it in a slightly different direction than you, but let me know if this was the exact example you had in mind, But just something as simple as Miranda rights, right? Like if you were taken into law or taken into custody by officers and you're like, you know, I understand my rights enough to know that you need to tell me my Miranda rights. You need to tell me that I have the right to remain silent or whatever. And just as certain, no, the cops like, hold on, now there's a new crime.

You're practicing law without a license. It's fundamentally on its face absurd. Yeah, that's better than what I was going to say. I mean, yeah, like, try to, or even, you know, a cop sees you doing something or pulls you over, like, let's say you have weed on you or whatever. Are you going to be able to get away with telling the cop is like, well, I hear you. However, you're not a lawyer, so you can't tell me. Like, come on. Like, that's obviously never going to fly.

Like, it's insane. Yeah. And it's clearly, what I think the goal is, like, if we, these are a bunch of rabble, if we can scare them with the prospect of a, of a, of a, of. an obscure, disorienting legal case that we can shut them up and we can disperse them, right? And that, but they're messing with OTAU and that you guys aren't just a bunch of uninformed rabble. Right. And the other thing I want to mention, too, is, you know, we formally requested through

our attorney the documentation of both the original complaint to see where that came from so we knew, like, what it was on the basis of because, I mean, I doubt it was a tenant that we organized that, well, ah, jack, complaint. But secondly, to get the meeting minutes on which it was voted so that we could see what exactly the legal basis or theory was for even coming to this decision in the first place, and finally, to ensure that Tara Holterhouse did in fact recuse herself from the proceedings. All those requests for records were denied, both through, like, our formal legal counsel

and through submitting Freedom of Information Act requests. and you would think that if like obviously we don't know if she recused herself or not I can't make any too bold of statements but you would think it would be a very simple thing to prove if she had like and they completely rejected giving any information surrounding that when the media has approached the commission since this happened it's always then they'll ask specifically did she recuse herself they say we can't comment on that and it's like if you guys really believed in your case and that you're just, you know, simply trying to enforce the law, you would think it would be quite easy to say, oh, no, of course you're accused herself for doing the

right thing. And the fact that that hasn't happened, I mean, I think it's pretty clear that they probably screwed up. And that's a huge, and they recognize that. And that's huge for us, too, because that's going to have to come to light at some point if they really want to push this thing. But just as importantly, you know, the refusal to get that legal theory or, you know, justification for it means we don't even know exactly what it is we're appealing. We're just told that we, you're practicing law without a license and we're expected to either a sign off our right to exist and the rights of tenants across the state to organize or, uh, or, uh, or, simply say, well, I don't even know what we, what, you know, I have no idea what they expect.

So, um, we're, we're very literally, you know, fighting blindfolded and with a hand tied behind our back because the landlords have their person in the committee that we're supposed to respond to. We don't even know what the hell it is that we're exactly responding to. And we're kind of just expected to make it up as we go. Um, so it's, it's, it's deeply, deeply troubling in a very opaque process. But I think the response that our attorney submitted and our appeal was really good and we really went all out with that and called everything like we see it. And so I think we've put them in a really difficult position. Yeah. And if the idea that it was an intimidation tactic is correct, then what they expected was for that to scare you. It's like sometimes when

you're being politically active and organizing, they'll send the FBI to your house, not because you've done anything wrong, but as a show of force, like we're watching you. And ask you some questions, and that's supposed to, and for some people it does, scare them, and be like, I'm not going to go to protest anymore. I'm not going to organize. I'm going to lay low for a while. You've done nothing wrong. But the first form of attack on you is to try to scare you. Let's say, are these people, can they really be under the stress test of a legal document? Like, can they even fight back? And the fact that you did start fighting back, that you did get counsel and pushed that kind of disoriented. Now the media is coming and asking if she's

going to recuse herself. That's disorienting. They didn't expect that. No. They think so low of you that they were just going to be able to obliterate you with a legal document. Exactly. And that's exactly what I was going to say. You know, this just, like, shows the level of regard that landlords have not only for us, but for, like, their tenants as a whole. Because this isn't the first time, like, landlords have tried to poll nonsense. One of the other attorneys who we assume is involved that represented elevate living where we had Nebraska's first tenants union formed at.

one of the things I think we maybe talked about this at the last OTI episode he sent us a letter saying because we're going to hold a tenants meeting on the basketball courts that are on the site and he sent us a letter saying that we're not allowed to have a public gathering there and that it will be shut down and I don't even know where to begin with that like I mean it's so because there's a group of like 50 tenants right that live there so you're saying they can't like you so like we obviously laughed that off. But, like, they really think that, like, we're all just so, like, dumb and cowardly that we would see something like that. I was like, oh, yeah, the entire United States Constitution doesn't apply to us because this jackass said so. And that's really the level of regard that they have for, they think we're really stupid. They think their tenants are really stupid because they're used to dealing with tenants on an individual level where they can just, like, bully and intimidate them in that way much more successfully. But, you know, when tenants get together and especially when they have O2U behind. and they're back, that's not going to fly. And I don't know how they have not learned from this yet.

Like, it seems like they still think we're just like these punk, angry kids that don't know what we're doing. And it's like, dude, this is, I mean, this is our life. Like, and we, you know, and we're communists, too. Like, we view this as a part of a larger political struggle. There's a very small part of that. So, like, if you think that a scary letter is what's going to, like, shut us up, you've completely miscalculated where our headspace is at and, like, what level we're playing on it.

And it's, yeah, it's shocking that they think these type of things would work at all. And it's clear that they just simply don't know what they're dealing with or what our attitude is. Absolutely. Yeah, like, you know, O'TU is fighting for an organization of society, a new organization of society. a deep set of values and principles guided by, you know, deep philosophical commitments. And these landlords are just like, I don't want the inconvenience of the rabble annoying me. And I don't want anybody to get in between me and this extraction machine of profit that I've got going. And so they're entitled because they live, you know, high on the hog for so long.

They have so little pushback. When there is pushback, they just, you know, it's just an individual and they just swamp them with their overwhelming legal and monetary power. and that shuts them up or whatever gets rid of them takes them to court they have lawyers the other people don't have good lawyers or whatever it may be and so year after year of that they just get this sense of I'm being omnipotent and I'm entitled to this and this nobody has the right to do anything to stop what I'm doing this is a nice little thing I got going for myself and so they're kind of appalled that anybody would would fight back and I think they're increasingly finding out that who they're dealing with is not just a bunch of you know disgruntled randos, but it's like people with deep commitments and a real sharp theory and, you know, and organizing is a central part of their life and their vision for a proper just future. So this is on one hand, as we've talked about off air, like, it's shitty that you have to deal with this and you have to, you know, get funds together to fight back. But it is also a sign of your growing power.

That they're now, they're escalating their attempts because now they see this as a real threat. We can't just pick off individuals now. they've already got five fucking you know tenant unions formed this is a real this could be a real problem for us if this catches momentum and continues to snowball and so let's now let's escalate our tactics let's try this new thing oh that doesn't work fuck yeah um so at the same time that they're like dialectically they're presenting you with challenges and obstacles it's also forcing ot you to level up yeah and i mean and it's complete vindication that we've chosen the correct course of action i mean We've known since we started O2 seven years ago that there is always a chance that we were going to be retaliated against.

And in fact, being retaliated against is our benchmark of success. Like, we knew a day like this would come if we were organizing successfully. If we weren't organizing successfully, we would not have this level of pushback where, you know, it's both state and private repression and collusion behind the scenes. I mean, really, like, mobilizing all of their forces to try to put a stop to us. And just to, like, as a quick example, I'll show you just how much even the idea of a tenant's union scares them. The most recent union that we formed, where the lawyer likewise tried to accuse us of UPL. In that same letter, though, the lawyer acknowledged that Nebraska's have a right to form tenants unions and seemed to tacitly say that they would sit down to meet.

So we're like, okay, let's, we have representatives for exactly that purpose. Let's do it. We followed up several times to get a meeting date that went unresponded to. So we showed up to the landlord's office with two O2 people and four of the tenants, the main tenant leaders of it. And bear in mind, you know, this is a tenant union that got signed off on. by like half the building. So we got like, you know, 30 people were down for this. And we only chose to show up with four.

You know, we weren't like escalating super hard right away. There's like, if you're not going to respond, we're going to show up and try to have a meeting. They actually let us in, shockingly, which was cool. And, you know, we all sat down in their conference room or whatever and waited for the CEO of the company to show up. Of course, when he showed up, he immediately told the two O2 people that we had to leave, which like, you know, what it's bullshit. that doesn't apply to labor unions ever, of course. But, you know, we agreed to do that because we have the utmost confidence and the tenants that we've organized to be able to speak for themselves

and, you know, advocate for their demands. And so we left, and upon us leaving, he proceeds to tell the four tenants that he does not recognize the tenants' union and that I'm not going to deal with a mob. So four people is a mob to these people. His own tenants coming to him, like, hey, we're... Terrifies them. And apparently, you know, he gets to be the judge and jury of what is a recognizable tenants union, too.

He was completely able to just, like, hand wave away the very explicit law in Nebraska that tenants have the right to form tenants unions. He felt like he could just do it just like that. Entitlement. And, yeah, so they want to have the right to be organized, but the least bit of tenant organization is, unacceptable to them and terrifies them if they think four people is a mob like I can show you a mob and like if that's the case but so that's that's where these people are at it's insane yeah it's wild um so let's talk about like the implication so um we have a little bit of time here left just on the face of it you know we've already talked about just the fundamental logical and legal absurdity

of the accusation that organizing and asserting your already existing rights is unlawfully practicing law but let's to flesh out the fucking absurdity of this and honestly the danger of it yeah think about this implication let's say it goes in this is you know hyperbole uh but it goes to the supreme court and it becomes legal precedent what would be the the the the material fallout the logical and legal implications of this idea being confirmed into law it would be nothing short of uh devastating and a massive rollback of democratic rights for not just Nebraska, but everybody across the United States. I mean, immediately, this could be used to apply to any sort of no-year rights organization,

whether that's immigration, women's reproductive rights organizations, any sort of organization that informs people of their rights and helps enforce them, that rug could be completely pulled out and they could out from under them, and they could be shuttered immediately. On a, like, more systematic level, though, what's really scary, you know, Nebraska in particular, and I assume there's probably similar carve-outs elsewhere, if you read the law surrounding unlicensed practice of law, there is an explicit exception for that for labor unions, that it does not apply to them and that they are allowed to do this. So, I mean, that's the other thing, too.

It's like, well, so you say a tenants union can exist, but it apparently can't in the same way that labor unions do. But that aside, I mean, one has to wonder then if that can be applied to a tenants union, which again is enshrined in Nebraska law as having a right to exist, it may not be this year, it may not be next year, but there could come a time where it's like, we're going to look at that carve out in the law for labor unions too. And that would be horrible. I mean, that would really have extreme impacts on how our economy functions, quite frankly. And so taken to its logical conclusion, if this is allowed to go through, it would have really devastating impacts on, you know, not that we have much love for the nonprofit, complex but there's a lot of nonprofits that do do a lot of good work out there and that would it could completely um ruin them and make them basically unable to function um and on a wider scale

it could just completely devastate labor organizing in general too and so you know that's the big thing i want to tell people is this is not uh this is not a Nebraska issue this concerns us all because if this goes through, there's going to try to be copycat cases for other tenant unions elsewhere. The tenant union movement has come a long ways on the past 10 years. So the immediate next target will be other tenants unions. But beyond that, the scope of this could be much, much larger and much more damaging. So it's not just an OTAU thing. It's not just a Nebraska thing.

It's not even just a tenants movement thing in general. This has really serious implications for the fabric of American society, and that's why I think this is so important, and I would love to see more people talking about this and signal boosting it on a national level because it's something that could really hurt everybody in a lot of really bad ways. yeah even if it never went federal and it just remained at the level of the state but it succeeded at the level of the state that would then be something that other states could easily point to and say well there is legal precedent not federal but state precedent that you know we could we could advance in this way and destroy our own tenant unions the basis the very premise of organizing of any type as you said around reproductive rights around immigrant rights around prison rights anything there's the carve out for labor rights but almost anything else would immediately be obliterated, and it would represent an advance on the very premise of labor rights, because at the end of the day, the idea of labor organizing and tenant organizing is the exact same logic. It's the exact same logical premise that there is exploitation taking place of some level, or at least the possibility of it, that one individual, because of their position in relation to the boss or the landlord, is incredibly weak and has no leverage in that negotiation or that power struggle.

Therefore, in the case of the worker or the tenant, getting a bunch of us together is our only way of creating leverage where we could actually meet that boss to that landlord as an equal and bargain back and forth negotiate to come to a mutually acceptable situation. And even that is like granting the boss and landlord way too much dignity. But, okay, that's the legal system we live under. so by by abolishing that premise for the tenant you automatically are attacking the very logical structures of labor union now i think you would hit a buzzsaw of institutional organized labor in a way that tenant organizing is not up to you know you'd hit these huge labor unions with decades or centuries of of institutional momentum and power behind them certainly you know there would be aspects of like the democratic party that would you know create push back because of their relationship with some of these, you know, more comfortable unions. So I think there would be real issues there. But if there's any administration under which you could take this moonshot, it would be this one. And so I don't think you're totally off base.

It could just be a coincidence. But it certainly seems like even the shift from Biden to Trump is a significant one in regards to like how far you could take an absurd case like this. Yeah. And I think, you know, landlords are, because you're right, I mean, it would be much more difficult to get that through with labor unions, I think. I would hope to God that wouldn't fly, but, I mean, the fact that it could even be a conversation has, is not good because if somebody asserts it, then a compromise has to be met then,

which is precisely what they tried to do with us by trying to force us to sign a consent decree saying what we would not do anymore, which is basically everything. So, I mean, even if it, like, it didn't pull the rug out entirely like that, it would something would have to be given up, basically. The Overton window would be shifted. The Overton window would be shifted. And I think, you know, I think landlords feel particularly bold about this because, I mean, going back to, like, you're talking about historical materialism.

I mean, the whole landlord system is a vestige of feudal society. Like, this isn't even like, Landlord, come on. This isn't even, like, necessarily, like, capitalist mode of production stuff. Just call us serf, not tenants. Yeah, like, I mean, like Lennon talks about in, um, um, um, the development. element of capitalism in Russia. He identified six different modes of production in Russia existing at that time. Every social formation consists of multiple modes of production,

even when there's one that's very dominant, such as we live under now, capitalism. And so, like, the landlord-tenant relationship is like this vestige of feudal society that's been allowed to continue existing just because of the sheer, you know, wealth and political power of the landlord class. And so I think they, you know, they're historically doomed class. Like they're growing increasingly irrelevant and people are seeing more and more just how ludicrous it is because it's much more easy to see just the bare-faced exploitative nature

of a tenant landlord relationship than it even is between a worker and a boss. You know, the worker and boss, that takes some explaining to do. It takes about 30 seconds and you don't have to be like politically, you don't have to be particularly politically conscious to get like, why the hell do I have to like pay somebody who does nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean quite literally nothing. The 2021 United States census found that landlords, on average, put a total of four hours of time into performing repairs and maintenance at a given apartment complex, while at the same time extracting

$25,000 of rent a month from that same property. So that's like $6,000 an hour. But I say all that because I do think the landlord class is beginning to feel increasingly threatened and aware that, you know, they're doomed at a certain point because it's even a problem for, like, actual capitalists, too. Like, commercial real estate rents are exorbitant right now. Like, it's insane. And you see mainstream media pushing more and more, like, quote unquote, bad landlord stories. And to me, that indicates there is, like, a growing tension between these two segments of the ruling class, because as, you know, as we approach a recession, as profit rates in the productive sector continue to decline, one of the easiest ways you could resolve that problem, or at the very least delay it, would be to get rid of the immense overhead that, like, capitalists have to give to landlords themselves. Exactly. So I, and that's not to, I'm not at all promoting any sort of class collaboration here saying that tenant union should focus on how landlords affect capitalists. But that's, that being said, there are, there are contradictions there between those interests within the ruling class. And as you see more, it's becoming more and more normal to talk about these issues with landlords in the mainstream media, even here locally, you know, there's stories all the time about, bad landlords that don't even

involve O2 to you. You see that becoming more common. I think it's a lot more mainstream to think that okay, this is, if the whole relationship is in fact at the very least, it's got out of control what these people are charging and what they're doing to people. And so I think

landlords view that as a real threat and most importantly, it indicates this is a like I said, a historically doomed class that one way or another, like if capitalism and even has a chance to save itself, which it doesn't. One way to extend its lifespan would be to throw off the landlord class.

And so they would be the first to go as capitalism continues to deteriorate more and more. And they might not have the political consciousness or vocabulary to see it in those terms. But I think the landlord class is aware that they have some problems and what they've been getting away with, at least, cannot last on the same scale that it has been for the long term. Absolutely. Yeah, no, it's really interesting. There's definitely been a slight but still significant cultural shift or superstructural shift in the zeitgeist of more boisterousness against the very idea of landlords, right?

We've seen that in the last several years pop up. And that's taking place in a broader material context in which the house, the cost of the housing crisis in particular is a driving crisis impacting people's lives every fucking day and then the broader cost of living crisis is combining and then when you think about that as the material situation so many people the majority of Americans find themselves in rent is the number one cost so so you can't buy a house because you're structurally prohibited from being able to afford one everything around you from health care to groceries to fucking being able to find transportation is getting more expensive and more arduous and child care and

everything your number one bite out of your paycheck every goddamn month is rent and so that creates the perfect material context in which more and more people are waking up to this fucking clearly exploitative fucking relationship that's happening and you mentioned this this remnant from feudalism what was the basis of feudalism the ownership of land right that was the that was the power base of the elite under feudalism under capitalism it's the ownership of private property and the ownership of land and homes is where those two forms of ownership intersect. So it is this, it's simultaneously modern

in its capitalist iteration while simultaneously a remnant from feudalism because it has that land-based component to it. So I think that's a really interesting like sort of historical materialist way of understanding that intersection and also the idea that capitalism could kind of defend itself

or the contradictions that emerge between the landlord class and the, broader capitalist class could be explained in those terms to some extent. Yeah, and that's a good correction to make, too, because I don't want to make a one-to-one that this is like a pure feudal relationship. Because, you know, obviously the rental economy has been highly capitalized. So I think as you say, you know, there's been kind of this like dialectical unity between the two modes of production that,

expresses itself in this. And, you know, I think, too, the other big problem for landlords, too, is, like, it's not like, it's not like labor organizing where, you know, if you're going to go on strike and withhold your labor, you also have to be okay with not having income or have a replacement for it. If every tenant in the U.S. tomorrow decided we're just not going to. going to pay you, like, what, what, what do they do? Like, you'd have to either have, like, a massive, like, basically a military, like,

you'd have to sick the military on, like, massive amounts of people, which I don't think that would go well. But my point in being is that it's only a one-way street with the landlord. We're simply giving them things. We're not getting anything out of it. Like, these homes aren't going to just evaporate into thin air if we stop paying rent. And that's a real problem for them because that's a massive amount of leverage that tenants have that we don't even have in labor organizing.

I mean, we do, but it's harder to wield that. You have to be prepared to give more up. That's why strike funds exist and people go through hardship. It's a real sacrifice to go on strike because you know you're not getting a wage. Right. Whereas, like, with this thing, it's a one waste. We're the ones that I'm your boss, buddy. Like, I can cut off your source of income whenever the fuck I want.

And that's obviously not going to work in isolation. but if people collectively did that on a large scale, there would be serious problems, and the only way to resolve them would either be a radical reshaping of that relationship, if not doing away with the landlord class entirely, or just, like, I mean, probably the most brutal military campaign, internal military campaign that, like, the U.S. has ever seen.

They're, like, literally dragging people out of their homes, and then, like, what do you do with them? Like, there's no, and that's obviously terrible optics, that would be a powder keg of all types of other stuff. So I don't think that's even a reasonable option. And the scab dynamic doesn't work either. Right. You can't move it.

You can't just move in. It's like, okay, well, I'll shoot you too. It's a very interesting point you make. And that's why I do think that, obviously, this is raw class struggle. This is the mystifications of that relationship coming unglued, and people seeing it for what it actually is. And I think tenant organizing in particular for all the reasons we are talking about and more is a particularly potent side of struggle.

And that's what I hope O.TU shows in practice. I hope this show conveys in theory that, you know, of course, we always support labor organizing and all other forms of organizing. But really, like, if you are looking for somewhere to anchor your organizing in your community, this is in every community, this is an issue for every working class family. This is something you can start acting on right now. It's just right there for the taking. and so I really urge organizers and people wanting to get into organizing think in this direction.

And so, yeah, an OTAU and other tenant unions across the country have and continue to pave the way and show people how this can be done and the sort of class backlash you'll get in the face of it and then how you can navigate that and how by navigating that you level up as an organization and become even more potent if you can succeed. So it's really cool. As we wrap up this conversation. Really quick, though, I want to say, one thing I'll make clear finally, though, as serious as this is, at the end of the day,

win or lose this particular fight, it's ultimately irrelevant from our perspective, because the landlord-tenant antagonism will still exist. We will find new ways to organize. The deeper-seated issues that we've been talking about this whole episode do not go away. way. Um, so like in, look, we're, we're communists. Like, we don't, we don't care about bourgeois law to begin with. While this would be really devastating and make things a lot harder, um, we would find new ways to organize. Tenants would find new ways to organize. The, the struggle would not stop. And that's the other thing that landlords don't realize. Like, if we just have to, we may

have to change organizing tactics, um, but, you know, we're confident that, like, like, like win or lose, this would, this is really going to be an impetus for much higher level organizing, much more intense organizing that's really going to motivate people to show out and be more bold than ever. So it's a scary time, but regardless of the outcome, we, you know, we have nothing but the utmost revolutionary optimism that there will be a path forward and these are just the gasps of a dying class, an animal that's trapped in a corner. And so we feel good.

This shows that they're the ones who are weak, not us. So, yeah. Many such cases in this decaying social order. Yes, yeah. All right, as the very last words here, can you let people know where they can find OTIU, how they can help OTIU fight back against this? I know the fundraiser campaign that you've already launched

has been pretty successful thus far, but maybe people who are in a position to can also donate to that. Yeah, we've had a great outpouring of support from the Omaha community. So, I mean, thank you to everybody who has donated first and foremost. But, yeah, we're on Omaha Tents United on Facebook and Instagram, our two primary places, mainly Facebook, frankly, because that's where all the tenants are at, I guess. But, you know, check us out there. Some of the statements we've been making, you know, if you're able to donate to our legal fund, that's highly appreciated. But I think the most important thing is, but beyond the monetary thing, you know, we'll figure that out one way or another.

Of course, we appreciate any donations, but I think the most important thing is just spreading this story. Because as we've, like, as we've emphasized very heavily throughout this, this is not just an OTO thing. It's not just a Nebraska thing. It's an all of us thing. So, like, you know, please help signal boost this, get this out. out there. If you even know, like, you know, any sort of progressive media, podcasts, local journalists, outside of Nebraska, I think the most powerful thing that could happen is trying to make this a national conversation to show people just how bad the implications for this

really are and try to mobilize people around this to, you know, defend what few organizing rights we have in this country and to, you know, inspire people to be more bold and, you know, start following in the footsteps of O2U to take on these parasitic landlords. So the biggest thing is, you know, really just getting this story out there and trying, I would love to see it become something that's, you know, talked about on a wide scale and really entering the national conversations that we can expedite this confrontation that's going to have to happen between tenants and landlords, and I think that's the best way to do that. But, you know, of course, if you can assist monetarily, that's great, too.

But I really think just pushing the conversation forward is the most impactful thing right now. And let's say somebody wanted to reach out to you as a journalist or media figure. What was the single best way to get a hold of you? Best way to get a hold of us would be Omaha Tenants United at Protonmail.com is our email. or you can also direct message us on Instagram or Facebook, and I'm sure we'll include contact info and stuff in the notes. Absolutely. All right, Seth, well, thank you so much.

You know, all love and solidarity to owe to you. And, yeah, take him up on his recommendation to spread the word as much as you possibly can, and this is class struggle. This is what it looks like, and we all have to have all hands on deck going forward, especially in these dark, uncertain, but also opportune times. Yes, sir.

Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening. RevLeft Radio is 100% listener funded. If you like what we do here, you can support us at patreon.com forward slash revleft radio or make a one-time donation at buy me a coffee.com forward slash rev left radio. Links will be in the show notes. I'm going to be. I'm going to be.

You know,