Oxford Renters Union has only just got started, but we know tenants’ organising works. Across Britain and Ireland, thousands-strong renters unions are establishing themselves and successfully defending their members against unfair evictions, winning rent controls, and claiming back thousands from rogue landlords. Below are just a handful of ‘case studies’ that illustrate the power of renters unions and show us just what we could achieve in Oxford, too!
Rent Controls and Eviction Defence
This October 2025, Living Rent, Scotland’s renters union, won back rent controls for Scotland after a decade of campaigning and direct action. Rent controls had originally been won after a successful rent-strike in Glasgow, but were then scrapped under Thatcher’s government in 1988.
On a more local scale, Living Rent’s Aberdeen branch were recently able to defend a member from forced eviction after staging a protest action outside the member’s estate agent, which secured them a seat at the table for negotiating away the eviction as well as winning the member £800 in rent repayment.
Rent Repayment
London Renters Union, founded in 2018, now has over 6,500 members. This union recently won £260,000 in rent repayment for its members and other tenants in two East London housing blocks after a successful legal challenge against a billionaire landlord operating unlicensed houses in multiple occupation (HMOs). London Renters Union successfully argued that the buildings were not of a high enough quality and level of safety due to the lack of safety checks and subsequent licensing.
Community and International Solidarity
Renters’ Unions can be powerful vehicles for social change, taking action against any injustices which its membership wish to fight. Ireland’s Community Action Tenants Union (CATU), for example, staged a 2023 sit-in in collaboration with Dublin4Gaza at the AXA European head offices, in protest of both the company’s complicity in israel’s genocide in Gaza as well as its investments in the private rental sector. The following year, AXA announced significant divestments, including selling all its investments in israeli weapons company Elbit Systems and two major israeli banks. It is thanks to this long-running campaign of direct action, of which this tenants’ union was a part, that these divestments were won.
We are not outnumbered, only out-organised! Join Oxford Renters Union today.