Shaking the system

I'm sitting in a circle of about 20 people at Aviator Apartments, a low-rise apartment complex in a working-class neighbourhood in Colorado Springs, listening to tenants work on a list of demands to present to their landlord at a tenant union launch in a few weeks. But I'm not really listening, as I'm too busy watching to see if the property manager followed through on her threat to call the cops on us.

- Jonathan Kronstadt

We're fairly certain we're not here illegally, having been invited in by people who live here. I'm tagging along with my son Max, who's an organiser with Colorado Springs Tenants, one of a growing number of citywide tenant unions in the US. Late in the meeting, two cops did show up, and after speaking first with Max and his colleague Zianah, then establishing that the tenants wanted the organisers there, they spoke to the property manager, who refused an offer to talk the whole thing over with Max. But the law is a bit murky, and the cops' bottom line was if the organisers come back they'll be arrested for trespassing.

Odds are a sternly worded letter from a lawyer will back management down, but Max's colleague Will offered some critical wisdom once the police had left. "Let's all understand what just happened here," he said. "The people who manage your homes called the cops on you for having a meeting, and they did that because they're scared, and what they're scared of is the power you're building."