The Students are Striking
Rent strikes have been a form of community action for as long as landlords have controlled property and mistreated tenants. In 1915, workers and housewives in Glasgow withheld their rent over unfair increases; three months into the strike, over 25,000 working families were refusing the pay rent. The community rallied together to prevent evictions, and workers in local shipyards and engineering works mobilised in support with industrial action. The strike won the first-ever Rent Restrictions Act, which prevented exploitative rent increases during the war.
During the 1918 “Spanish” influenza pandemic, in the shadows of the First World War and anti-colonial struggles across the world, class war was raging in the streets of New York. A multitude of government mistakes that lead to rising infections, coupled with unsafe housing and a rise in union activity amongst never immigrant communities, prompted thousands of tenants to refuse to pay rent. Where pre-war rent strike had been largely unsuccessful, the 1918-20 strikes saw solidarity across communities, and “militant housewives” acting in place of their husbands away at war.
Student rent strikes have also played a significant role in the history of tenant activism. In 1972 and 1985, students at the University of Sussex withheld their rent, with 77% of the campus population going on strike in the earlier years. The students were protesting proposed increases in rent and the building of more inadequate accommodation. A nation-wide strike against a drop in the value of student grants won a 25% increase in 1973, which buoyed strikes in multiple universities for the next decade. Despite continued outrage and protest against rent hikes and poor-quality accommodation, universities have continued to demand students pay extortionate prices for subpar housing.
What has been happening at universities, not just in the UK but across the world, is a response to global events, much like those mentioned above, as well as decades of marketisation and privatisation. From 2010, with the tripling of tuition fees and the abandonment of government subsidies that left universities dependent on loans and fees, universities are less institutions of higher education and more business opportunities. Coupled with the ongoing COVID pandemic, the financial situation facing students has worsened significantly. Forced into overpriced accommodation for quarantines and lockdowns, harassed by police and security alike, students at over 45 universities in the UK have gone on rent strike. Demands include reductions on rent for the year, no COVID-related job losses, and the possibility of early release from tenancy agreements.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of students have taken part in what has been called “one of the largest student rebellions since the 1970s”. From Manchester and Bristol, the first students to declare their intention to strike, to Cambridge, London, Dundee and more, students are fighting against marketisation, police surveillance, and inadequate housing; all of these issues can be found readily across society, from the Kill the Bill movement, to the fight for Justice for Grenfell, and the trade union movement’s continued defence against austerity and the privatisation of public services.