The first round of our nine-month fight with Cornell & Associates has ended in victory for the Sterling Manor Tenants Committee and SeaSol. To satisfy our demands, the landlords have so far spent over $50,000 on an ongoing large-scale project to fix the problems of mold and decay that have long plagued the Sterling Manor apartments in north Seattle, causing health problems and triggering one of SeaSol’s most ambitious campaigns to date. “It’s important not to be intimidated into allowing our rights to be violated,” says a member of the Tenants’ Committee. “It’s hard to decide to get involved in a fight, but in the end you can do anything with support. We did it.”

Cornell & Associates, which manages Sterling Manor, is one of the biggest residential landlords in Seattle. We knew from the outset that they might not care about tenants getting sick due to lack of maintenance, as long as it didn’t hurt their business. However, we had no idea of the level of hostility with which they would react to our demands for mold inspection and repairs.

Within a few days of the August 2013 demand delivery, Cornell & Associates launched eviction attempts against two Sterling Manor tenants who had signed onto the demand letter. In response, hundreds of “Don’t rent here!” warning posters went up around Cornell-run apartment buildings, replaced over and over as management scrambled to keep removing them. Online ratings of Cornell buildings plummeted as people posted dozens of candid reviews, and Sterling Manor’s official photos on Yelp.com became close-ups of the mold and bedbugs in the building.

We held pickets outside Cornell’s offices on a weekly basis, displaying a huge “Cornell is a slumlord” banner. Delegations visited the neighbors of Cornell executive Bart Flora and of the manager of Sterling Manor, letting them know about the slumlords in their midst. SeaSol’s allies in Florida even brought the message to the neighborhood of Sterling Manor’s owner, visiting the small beach-front town where he was spending the fall and winter.

We stopped one the evictions by fundraising to pay off a disputed utility bill. The other eviction order was eventually dropped because the tenant, Paula, had been planning to move anyway. But she remained active in the fight: “Even though they tried to evict me, I decided to continue supporting the fight, so that the next people to move in wouldn’t have to suffer like we did,” Paula says. “I still have health problems even after moving out.”

Some tenants were intimidated by this retaliation, but the most active Tenant Committee members became more determined than ever. One tenant joined the SeaSol organizing committee. Seeing that the eviction attempts weren’t stopping us, the company resorted to its next tactic, hiring a law firm to sue SeaSol and three individual SeaSol members.

Their lawsuit was designed to make our people afraid to be seen on the picket lines. First one individual member was sued, then a second, then a third, with the documents listing a series of not-yet-named “John & Jane Doe” defendants. Their lawyer showed up at one of our pre-picket meet-ups bearing a thick stack of lawsuit papers and photographed of people’s faces. He lectured us loudly (until we shut him down) about how, if we failed to respond to the lawsuit, we would automatically owe Cornell huge sums of money and our credit would be ruined forever. He seemed to assume that we—an organization with no funding, no office, no staff—would not be able to cope with a lawsuit.

He should have known better. SeaSol has already been sued once before, by Lorig Associates in 2010, and we carried on and won our direct action campaign, all while fending off their legal attacks with the help of some great pro-bono lawyers. This time around we were stronger and better prepared. Their claims were baseless: essentially Cornell told the court that we were hurting their business by lying about mold problems at Sterling Manor. And yet we had photos of mold-covered walls, and even inspection reports from the American Lung Association which showed excessively high moisture levels. Within weeks, we secured excellent legal counsel (BJT Legal’s Brendan Donckers, who had defended us against Lorig), and raised money for legal costs.

The pickets at Cornell’s offices, which they were going to great legal expense to try to stop, did not stop. Neither did the posters, nor the embarrassing neighborhood protests. We also sent letters to dozens of landlords who employed Cornell to manage their buildings. According to court documents, one landlord fired Cornell.

The first clear sign that we were winning was when the owner of Sterling Manor, Richard Herman, made a personal visit to the building. Soon after, a series of major repairs began, including replacing water damaged carpets and doors, fixing leaks, replacing sheetrock and remodeling apartments, remodeling kitchens and bathrooms to prevent mold, and replacing the roof.

Unfortunately the landlords did not bring in an independent mold inspector prior to starting the repair work. However, based on tenants’ observations, we have reason to believe that this is a genuine and substantial effort to fix the mold problems, unlike the superficial work (like painting over the mold) that had been the rule before our fight. At this point over $50,000 has already gone into these repairs, according to court documents submitted by Cornell & Associates’ lawyers, with promises that the work will continue.

Cornell’s lawsuit received an unfavorable judgment in court on April 4th, 2014, which they are appealing. We hope this will be a lesson to other businesses and institutions who think they can use the legal system to squash collective action.

Assuming the ongoing and promised repairs are carried out and there is no further retaliation, we are declaring victory in our campaign against Cornell and Associates. Given Cornell’s size and reputation, as well as our ongoing relationship with the tenants, we may well have to fight them again. But for now, it’s time to celebrate a hard-earned victory. Thanks to everyone who’s helped carry SeasSol to one of our biggest victories yet!

New SeaSol member Antonio worked at a grocery store in White Center for two grueling years. Working regular 6-day, 72-hour weeks, Antonio received no breaks, no overtime pay, and was irregularly compensated at less than $7 per hour (far below Washington State’s minimum wage). When he learned of our win at Jumbo Buffet, Antonio got in touch with the Seattle Solidarity Network. After much discussion and research, SeaSol and Antonio voted to fight for 30 weeks of back wages, or $6,710, for Antonio.

On Saturday July 27th 2013, Antonio, his family, and over forty SeaSolers filed into the store to deliver our demand. The atmosphere was tense as the boss read the letter, shaking, and looking around at the stern faces glaring in solidarity with Antonio. The boss was so intimidated by our direct action that he immediately contacted a lawyer friend for help. His lawyer called us the following Monday with weak – and quickly shut down – attempts at bargaining.

On Thursday August 8th 2013, the thieving boss and his lawyer friend met up with Antonio, his daughter, and other SeaSol members. More attempts to bully Antonio into accepting less money were rejected, and Antonio was paid $6,710 on the spot.

The unwavering position presented by SeaSol and Antonio throughout this fight, our refusal to play legal games with a lawyer, and flawlessly carried out direct action quickly resulted in a swift win in this fight. Congratulations to our new comrade Antonio, and thanks to all who showed up to the demand delivery!

 

SeaSol’s latest victory is over FPI Management, a national real estate management company with properties in over ten states. This particular fight focused on a case of blatant deposit theft at Tressa, a north Seattle apartment complex. When Hayward moved out of Tressa, he and his family were told the apartment looked fine and only $60-70 would be deducted from his security deposit for general cleaning. However, Tressa kept $388.44 from his deposit claiming they had to replace the entire carpet due to stains. When asked for evidence, Tressa management produced pictures of a filthy carpet from a unit that was not even Hayward’s apartment!

Hayward’s younger brother Sahara was considering taking the property manager to small claims court over this theft, but when he heard about SeaSol he decided to take the direct action route. As usual we put up “DON’T RENT HERE” posters around the neighborhood and eventually some of other FPI owned properties in the area. Through online research and hearing from other tenants, we learned that cutting corners on maintenance and ripping off tenants seems to be FPI’s basic business practice across the country.

The weekend of our first picket at Tressa happened to coincide with our first International Solidarity Network Conference! 15 representatives from solidarity networks and similar organizations were in town to share experiences, get trained on specific skills and learn from each other. The timing could not have been better. What started off as a small picket directly in front of Tressa’s leasing office eventually grew into a rowdy 40+ person picket as conference attendees and local SeaSol members came over by the carload. We got attention from everybody: office staff, current tenants and even prospective tenants who were in the middle of a tour.

A week later, Hayward received a check sent via overnight mail for the remainder of his deposit. Thanks to everybody who supported the fight, especially our out of town guests from Steel City Solidarity, Kitchener-Waterloo Solidarity Network, Jewel City Solidarity Network, San Diego Solidarity Network, Portland Solidarity Network, East Bay Solidarity Network, Sonoma County Solidarity Network and the Victoria IWW.

 

After a three month fight Marco and Seasol have won our campaign against Jumbo Buffet in White Center.

It all started when Jumbo refused to give Marco breaks, overtime pay, or even to pay him minimum wage. That’s right. Marco worked ten or twelve hours a day washing dishes for a flat rate of $60. This came out to about $6 an hour, well under the required legal minimum. When confronted about it, Kevin, the Jumbo manager and nephew of the owner, simply refused to pay more.

After four months Marco had enough. Through a friend he learned about Seasol, gave us a call, and quickly became a member. With Marco we agreed to take on the fight. Our demand delivery was monstrous. We literally shook the floors and windows with our clapping and stomping. With fifty plus people backing him up, Marco demanded his back wages, a total of $4700.

At our first picket, with Marco leading the way, we shut down their lunch rush, emptying out their parking lot in just an hour’s time. We had inside information and continued our pressure campaign, targeting their busiest times: Sunday after church, Friday evenings, and Saturday afternoons and evenings. Each time we would empty out or nearly empty out their parking lot, turning away dozens of potential diners, with a loss of hundreds and hundreds of dollars each action. We knew it was only a matter of time before they caved. The emptier their parking lot, the better we felt.

One big element of our success was the enormous community support from the people of White Center. Neighbors showed up to each picket; drivers honked; people waved; neighboring businesses put our leaflets in their windows; diners turned around in the middle of the entrance once they learned Marco had been treated so poorly. Children from across the street made their own “boycott Jumbo” signs and posted them in front of their house.

Kevin and Jumbo had no idea what was in store for them. It took them several months to figure out that we could shut them down and drive them out of business if they refuse to pay Marco and their workers. Once it became clear we could destroy their business, they tried to negotiate, promising more and more money, up to $3000. On one such phone call with Kevin, Marco told them, “Don’t be stupid, Kevin – I don’t negotiate with my own money.” After three months of pickets and actions, a final day long call-in to Jumbo management pushed them over the edge. We set up a meeting, and Marco got all of his back wages!

This fight was a lesson in solidarity for all of us. With the support of the community we put a major squeeze on a cheating boss. The best part is that Marco has become a star organizer – already soliciting new fights with new workers in White Center. In Marco’s words: “without the help of the community of White Center and the help of Seasol it would not have been possible to recuperate the money that I was owed . . . a million thanks to Seasol and White Center.”