Tenants’ Power and Dual Strategy! Reflections from Bostadsvrålet!
Written by Nikos Vrantsis
Recently we discussed what Swedish tenants’ unions might learn from struggles abroad.
Sweden has one of the largest tenants’ unions in the world, with around half a million members. Yet despite its size, the union has become so institutionalized that landlords keep winning. Rents rise year after year despite mandatory negotiations; loopholes are exploited, renovictions enforced, and defeats accumulate. This has created frustration and sparked efforts inside and outside the union to pressure and awaken what has become a sleeping giant, managed by a social democratic elite estranged from its base.
A central debate is whether organizing should happen inside or outside the official tenants’ union. To me, this is not the real question. Change can be pushed from both directions, each with its own strengths and limits. The radical wing inside the union insists there is no alternative to working from within, but that is a mistaken view rooted in fear. Both inside and outside strategies are needed.
I underlined the difference between a members’ base union (where those directly affected help one another) and a service union, which offers mainly legal advice from above. The Swedish tenants’ union has drifted toward the latter. Rebuilding a base union rooted in lived experience is essential.
Sweden also presents unique opportunities. Unlike in Greece, where landlord structures are fragmented, here the enemy is clear and concentrated. Corporate giants like Vonovia own thousands of buildings, and even municipally owned stock is often left to decay, inviting the “market” as a supposed savior. The task is not to rely on the market but to organize against it, defend what has been achieved through municipalization, and reclaim control.
I also argued that we must separate communication from organization. We are building tenants’ unions; not leftist, anarchist, or social democratic clubs, but unions for all tenants. Communication should not scare people away with abstract ideological preaching. Anti-capitalism, anti-racism, and anti-patriarchy must guide our organizational practice, but they need not dominate our public messaging. Too often the opposite happens: radical posturing in words, incoherence in practice. We should invert this with a broad, accessible communication that frames our demands as legitimate, just, and beneficial for the majority, combined with practice that builds real communities of solidarity and struggle.
Radicalization must also be rethought. Too many groups start with extreme rhetoric that isolates them, then soften as they grow. We need the opposite strategy: begin broad and radicalize as we gain strength. Growth allows us to challenge deeper assumptions, eventually questioning the very legitimacy of rent itself. Our vocabulary and symbols must also evolve. The raised fist sprouting from a building is stale. Radicalism should not be performed as aesthetics. We need creative language and imagery that unify tenants around clear demands, with the goal of decommodifying housing.
Finally, I called for a double strategy: fighting for recognition at the negotiating table while developing direct actions that deliver concrete solutions to tenants’ daily struggles. The formal tenants’ union has the first but not the second. Grassroots groups, however, can organize the base. A base union must go where the conflict is. I learned that if tenants in a building form their own union and win majority support, they can negotiate directly with their landlord, bypassing the official nationwide negotiations. This points to a path of building-level organizing, linking the most acute struggles into a common fight.
The enemy is not the tenants’ union but the landlord. The union should be treated with critical tension, like movements treat political parties or the state. Collaboration is possible, but always under pressure, pushing the formal union to the direction of the grassroots. This is the meaning of dual power: an autonomous movement strong enough to reshape institutions by exerting pressure from outside. Both the people fighting inside the tenants’ union and the groups outside it are needed. The task is to coordinate, not to treat each other with hostility or fear.
My suggestions to autonomous groups and their allies: build unity on principles, not personalities, so disputes remain political; root organizing in real conflicts, because without them groups collapse into infighting; formulate clear demands; craft communications aimed at the social majority; and develop direct action strategies that win tangible victories.
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