Building tenants’ power in the Bronx: interview with Manny Pardilla

As of May 7th, at least 33.5 million people are unemployed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The poor response by the state and employers is pushing working class people into tension with the pressures of everyday struggles. Healthcare workers are demanding greater protection, housing activists are calling for mass rent strikes, unemployment claims are expected to grow – this crisis will continue to expand. The push by capitalists to re-open the economy, and the state’s unwillingness to face the deadly realities of the pandemic will mean that Covid-19 is generating the conditions for mass struggle in the United States.

The organized labor movement’s timid efforts to push the Federal Government has been uninspiring and with huge swaths of working people disorganized, the descent into further barbarism stands over us all. The tasks faced by the new socialist movement in overcoming this divide stands over it like a mountain. But there are militants on the ground who are doing what they can to organize the people around them and build independent organizations. 

Manny Pardilla is a Bronx born and raised New Yorker who spent the last couple of years organizing tenants in his South Bronx neighborhood of Mott Haven. He’s the main organizer for the South Bronx Tenants Movement (SBTM), which is made up of tenant associations in two apartment buildings owned by private landlords. Tenants of the SBTM are waging campaigns against their landlords over lack of building maintenance and repairs. Tenants in one building have been without cooking gas since October 2019. On April 1st, in solidarity with the #CancelRent campaign, the SBTM launched an ongoing rent strike and made their decision public at a press conference.

Julian Guerrero interviewed Manny for Working Class Heroes Radio. In collaboration with Puntorojo Magazine, we are running the full length of the interview. You can learn more about the SBTM’s campaigns and rent strike by listening to the episode here. In this interview, we get Manny’s perspective as a tenant organizer and how tenant organizing can be a central point for which to extend socialist organizing into other spheres of working class life.

Julian: Manny, where do you live and how long have you lived there?

Manny: I've been living here in the South Bronx particularly in the Mott Haven area on 138th Street since 2002. I've been living in Mitchel Houses that whole time. Going to school there whether it was in elementary school and middle school. Then, for high school, I traveled further out to the northeast Bronx. But you know, my life has revolved in the Bronx almost unintentionally – Bronx resident and Bronxite all together for all this time. 

Julian: How did you get into tenant organizing?

Manny: I've been an activist since my later days in high school. I was involved in a multitude of areas of struggles such as student organizing and police brutality – myself being a victim of police brutality when I was “stopped-and-frisked” and outright falsely arrested for doing Copwatch. That was pivotal for me in my own politicizing. From there, I got in communication with the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition around the summer of 2015, because we were using their space for a meeting we were having around the issues in the Dominican Republic where the government was enacting xenophobic laws against Dominicans of Haitian descent to deport them. I was doing a lot of organizing around that, just being Dominican myself, my parents being immigrants from the Dominican Republic. A friend at the Northwest Bronx said “listen, have you thought about being a tenant organizer?” I said no, I haven't really thought about it.

I was just fresh out of college, got my bachelor's, I didn't have that much money in my bank account. I was that person who was going into Whole Foods and taking a few things here and there just to maintain my health. 

There were at least two times where I didn't get away with shoplifting and I was arrested. So you know those times were tough. Considering my economic hardship and indecisiveness about what to do next in life, I applied for the position. I was nervous and conflicted about working for an NGO as I had negative interactions with people working in community groups and I never really believed in having to monetize my organizing. In my interview, I was very candid about my beliefs as a communist. I honestly didn't think I would get the position because of how candid I was being and at the time I was like yeah, this would be great but I didn't know if this was the direction I wanted to go. A few weeks after the interview, I received an email stating that they wanted to onboard me. I accepted and decided to enter a world I was not familiar to. I was there for four years and I left last year in May. 

During those four years I got to really hone in on the nuts and bolts of tenant organizing. But not just that, I also got to enact a lot of my political beliefs in so far as Maoism is concerned, Marxism is concerned and communist theory. I learned and sharpened my craft on how to organize oppressed peoples through an avenue I was not necessarily familiar to organizing around. In Marxism, we are brought to the understanding that labor and the working class is the center of struggle but being in this role has allowed me to reevaluate this and understand that there are other areas of class struggle other than labor in New York City. In tenant organizing, I saw myself tapping into a larger demographic. I saw myself organizing people who were unemployed, who were employed, who were elderly, who were children. I saw this interweb of people that I was connecting with who were tenants. That was their identity and that was their class, that's what they understood themselves as.  

Within the scope of housing, you have many issues such as health, the economic questions of rent and then you also have the question of undocumented families. When ICE do their raids, they do it in people's homes.

So if you look at all of this, you start to realize that there is this whole ecosystem that revolves around the question of housing. When I started to realize all that, the question of organizing working people was answered by focusing on organizing around their homes.

So if you look at all of this, you start to realize that there is this whole ecosystem that revolves around the question of housing. When I started to realize all that, the question of organizing working people was answered by focusing on organizing around their homes. But it’s a question we need to revisit, how the Left needs to organize people here in New York City. I'm not sure if this is a formula that might work anywhere else but I know for a fact that within the context of New York City and the Bronx this is how we need to organize people and this is how we're going to see some real structural changes here in New York City, perhaps in New York state. 

A year and a half into my organizing with Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition, I did some research on the Mott Haven area and I realized that there weren't any organizing groups organizing there. The few organizing groups that were active in the Mott Haven area were primarily focusing on NYCHA [public housing]. It's a high density building, some of the most neglected, and obviously, a voter constituent target base. This is sugar to any non-profit. But there's a problem with how this is managed. Oftentimes, non-profits do organizing work based on how it's connected to a contract that they are trying to utilize for their organizing purposes. It's a difficult balance and can be misinterpreted as disingenuous to people for all the right reasons. These are the trappings of organizing under capitalism. 

But the question of all these private buildings, where you had tenants living in 10 unit buildings, 18 unit buildings, 20 unit buildings, there's some 30 unit buildings out here as well. These are tenants, who in indirect and sometimes direct ways, were being told that they have to fend for themselves. Mind you, these are the places where undocumented people are going to be residing because they can't apply for NYCHA. 

All I really did, to organize in my area, was just walk around my neighborhood and look at every single building. Looking at its aesthetic, see what conditions are like. And then I'll get on my phone and I'll see if tenants have been calling 311 because that tells me that there's organizing potential and would inform me if there are potential leaders who have been doing their due diligence and have had to face the contradictions and limitations of 311. And so that's how the South Bronx Tenant Movement was born, just out of a lonely walk around the block.

Julian: That’s the organization who you organize under? 

Manny: Yes, that's the organization I organize under. I always try to go on record as a volunteer organizer just because I'm not getting paid. I'm very adamant about creating a distinction between myself and somebody working at a non-profit.  Yes, we are all organizers, but I am a volunteer organizer. You can come and organize with the South Bronx Tenants Movement but it would be as a volunteer organizer because that's just where we're at and in many ways this is where we plan to be in the foreseeable future – until perhaps we build some structures.

Julian: What about the rest of these tenants you organize with, do they identify as members of the South Bronx Tenants Movement?

Manny: Well, I say myself in the sense that I am currently the only one who encompasses any sort of formation or idea of an organizing committee. I am, for what it's worth, the main organizer. But yes, tenants do identify as being members of the South Bronx Tenants Movement and that's what really helped them come forth to advocate for the cancellation of rent and for the rent strike. We were behind the banner of the South Bronx Tenants Movement making sure tenants knew that this wasn’t an individual building based fight but something that we were advocating as a group inclusive to neighbors in the area. Tenants certainly do identify with the South Bronx Tenants Movement, some more than others, obviously, but I think that's more about political education and not forcing people to identify with that but more so having them understand what kind of power they possess if two or three or four or five buildings come together against one landlord! 

The power of that – it's a lot more than if it was just one building. I think it's a learning curve for many folks and it’s something that I still need to do a lot of political education around. I hope to build an organizing committee of tenant leaders but, at the moment, it's just me who's scouting the building, who's initiating. 

One way I like to describe myself is, I'm the yeast to the flour to make the bread. The flour is like the main ingredient and those are the tenants and those are the masses of people but sometimes you need the organizer to equip you with your rights, to equip you with any sort of ideas on strategy and for some people it equips them with confidence. And I think that's what springs people into action.

Julian: Now that Covid-19 is here and it's gripping the city, how have you and the South Bronx Tenants Movement continue to organize? How are people taking this whole thing?

Manny: It's interesting because people are certainly afraid, they are taking precautions. But there are many more who would love to take the standard precautions (stay-at-home). The reason why I say that is because even though they want to take precaution they can't because they have to work. We're talking about poor and working-class families; we're talking about people who were unsure if they had to pay rent. These are people who are sacrificing themselves for their economic health. Some of these people have decided to stand alongside the South Bronx Tenants Movement. There's at least two buildings that have decided to take a stand with this fight. Some of these tenants are working despite fears of contracting the virus. There are people who are going out to do laundry despite their fear, there are people who are still going out to do groceries despite this fear and, so I think, for us as organizers, we have to think critically about where people are at, and I think, we often times run the risk of caretaking for the people. 

we assume what's best for them rather than ask them how far we should go. It's about them having the autonomy or the ability to determine what's best for them. 

Tenants are definitely taking a hit and I think it's important for everyone to feel that. It speaks to the need for a larger systemic solution overall that, under this current neoliberal capitalist state, is not going to create any sort of roadmap towards that kind of solution, however much we try to advocate for it. Tenants cannot pull themselves up by their bootstraps, like neoliberalism has taught us, when there's no boots. We're seeing little tiny specks of that even with any sort of discourse around the cancellation of rent coming from Cuomo. With the influence of real estate lobbyists in Albany, we’re seeing from local council members, senators and assembly members say, “yeah, landlords should get paid the security deposit of tenants”. I think that's an added insult to injury against the tenant class.

Julian: Are you still organizing? I mean are you still leaving your house to go into the building at 382 to talk with tenants? Are you doing this remotely at this point?

Manny:  Right now, I'm doing it remotely due to recent symptoms I’ve dealt with – but I’m healing and getting in better shape. I want to get healthy so I can go out and support people on the ground. I think there’s value in tenants seeing me. This is a time when local council member’s offices are closed and our local representatives, whether it's in the state senate or in the state assembly. It's important for the community to look out for each other and to organize. There may be criticism around going out and organizing due to the health crisis but I think we can organize carefully and limit our time and visits to people if tenants feel comfortable. Personally I have no problem in going out and interacting with tenants, of course, as long as we're all following the same safety measures if it's wearing gloves, masks, whatever.

Julian: What do you think tenants should be doing right now? What would be the advice for all those folks right now who are starting to have those questions and how it might affect them in New York City?

Manny:  Now more than ever, tenants should consider forming tenant associations, even if it's pre-formations. I say that for very practical reasons. I think it would help build solidarity networks, if it means just checking in on one another. To speak about one of my tenant leaders while I was organizing with the Northwest Bronx – this one particular tenant – he's elderly and home alone. He has neighbors and he knows them – a tenant association can look out for him and check in with him even if it means going across the hall to say hello to him and give him some peace of mind. For tenant associations across the city, what if they were able to create systems to look out for their elderly in this way?

A little anecdote; there's a building that I organized and then I stopped organizing with them for a multitude of reasons. But we had formed a WhatsApp group to better coordinate among neighbors and to promote meetings and stuff like that before tenants decided they didn't want to continue organizing anymore. I left but the WhatsApp group stayed in place. It hasn't been active up until last week and now tenants are now using the WhatsApp group as if there's a tenant association and they're utilizing it for very practical reasons. What they've proposed amongst each other is, to create a cleaning system that’s meant to fill the void of the landlord since he doesn’t clean the hallways nor the stairs. There’s been a lot of violations in this building. So they said to each other “what if we all took turns and supported each other in cleaning the common areas so we can all be healthy during these times”. My stance would generally be to force the landlord to do the cleaning but it's these executive decisions on immediate issues that they can impact right away that allow them to build solidarity at the moment. The WhatsApp group is being used by tenants to coordinate shifts amongst neighbors; and it’s happening organically.  I'm just seeing things from a bird's-eye view but they're doing a lot of this stuff literally on their own. That's a very practical thing that a tenant association can step up on during these times – during this time when many power players are absent from our lives.

Julian: There's been calls and talks about a rent strike starting on April 1st, I know you all had your action and are currently on rent strike – was the South Bronx Tenants Movement part of a broader network or effort to coordinate that to carry out the rent strike here in NYC?

Manny: Yes, out of principle we are aligned to Right to Counsel and Housing Justice for All Coalition to push for the cancellation of rents or rent strike struggle.  These are groups that formed a petition with over 80 thousand signatures from New Yorkers, people across the whole state who are telling the governor that he should do the right thing because he already told people to stay home. The right thing to do is to let tenants know they don't have to worry about their rent. But the governor chose to be irresponsible and so that's the fight that we're taking against him. I'm happy to know that there are groups like Housing Justice for All and Right to Counsel who are in many ways leading this fight. The South Bronx Tenants Movement was able to kind of assist and elevate it a little bit, by showcasing tenants outside during quarantine – being able to show how vulnerable they are and how willing to take risks they were.

Julian: What is the status of this fight, where's things right now with the Governor and with this rent strike effort?

Manny: I'm not very privy to the internal conversations of the coalition but what the governor said was that he already solved the issue with the eviction moratorium. The eviction moratorium implies that no one can get evicted within ninety days, which is three months. But it doesn't mention anything about rents – people are still going to get charged rent every single month – even within the span of those 90 days. So hypothetically, let's assume that the ninety days pass and we're talking about tenants with three months’ worth of missing rent, non-payments. So because tenants haven't worked and decided to respect the Governor's call to stay home – they now have a debt with the landlord. That ain’t right!  That's the dilemma, that's the situation we're going through right now. The governor is being stubborn and I think folks in those coalition spaces are probably going to try to escalate things a little bit more against him.

Julian: Would it be fair to assume that when this moratorium on evictions is up in three months, we should expect to see a tsunami of non-payment cases being put in by landlords across the city? 

Manny: That's what it seems like and that's what's going to happen if things don't change. There's going to be a lot of landlords that are going to start non-payment cases. I think it doesn't benefit tenants, especially those who don't work, or those who are not working, now, because of the pandemic. Many people have gotten laid off. These are families who are going to get evicted not just from their homes, but from their buildings, and ultimately their communities. We're essentially talking about a new strategy, orchestrated by those promoting gentrification and the displacement of black and brown tenants. This is certainly what a lot of these developers wanted, this is certainly what a lot of these rezoning plans have been about, whether directly or indirectly. It's really, really sad to see the idleness of many of our local electeds on this end of stuff, knowing the consequences.

Julian: This is the first time in a long time that we see citywide tenant action. Do you think that the tenant movement and tenants’ rights will be stronger after all this?

Manny: I hope so – I think it all depends on the organizers on the ground. Again, the organizers are the yeast to the flour and I think, now more than ever, it's an opportunity for us to ferment the leaders that are going to give rise to a tenant’s movement. It's important to do, political education. Let them understand the context, the contradictions of society right now, the absence of our local electeds. There’s tenants who, for whatever reason, have an undying faith in the local electeds – maybe because they’ve done something personal for them or due to how entrenched the democrats have been in places like the Bronx. And now most of these electeds are absent, and tenants’ lives are in danger.

I think it's really important for us to really define what it means to organize after all of this and really analyze what is going on in this context. I wouldn't want to go and revert towards some sort of orientation where we're celebrating the things that we've done during the pandemic. I wouldn't want to turn towards that. If we were, I would want to really shift it towards how tenants pushed changes to happen. How we didn't get all the changes we wanted and that that shows the inability of the government to handle a crisis even if it meant our lives were on the line. 

I think there's a lot of pressure for organizers who, especially during these times, may have personal health concerns for their tenants. Their organization may shift their priorities but I think that we have to constantly politicize people. One thing I can say about how I've been politicizing people is around the contradiction of politics and talking to people, being like “listen man, what if the South Bronx Tenants Movement created a political party? An independent political party? And one of us ran? It could be you. It could be you if we all agreed to it”. I was talking to a tenant and they were like “yeah, because these politicians are absent. Where are they?” And they were sending me articles of just how they've always been absent and they've always kept their mouths shut on issues that really matter to people. So the political education piece is certainly something that we can start now and that we could perhaps carry us past this episode but I'm hoping that with the correct political education we can start, actually, having a conversation around the morality of rent.

Now more than ever, it's important for tenants to understand that their organizer has their back. But that's up to the organizer to make themselves available by showing tenants that they're going to be with them and that they're going to struggle alongside them – it's a relationship of camaraderie. You know, we're comrades, we're fighting together, that kind of thing. I'm your organizer, yes, but this doesn't mean anything once we're on the same page with everything. Once we're on the same page with everything, we’re comrades.

Julian has been an activist and organizer since 2010 and lifelong New Yorker from Queens. The son of immigrant parents from Colombia, Julian is involved with the Working Class Heroes Radio collective and has written for Jacobin, Truthout, and Socialist Worker. He's been part of several social movements engaged in CUNY student activism, immigrant’s rights efforts, the Black Lives Matter movement, criminal justice reforms, tenant organizing and labor fights.