The tenants just wanted to talk to their landlord.
Dozens of residents from across the country gathered Monday at the offices in Spring Valley, New York, hoping to set up a meeting with the real estate company’s president, Moshe Eichler.
These individuals were part of a , representing residents of more than 1,500 affordable housing units across nine properties in six states, including Colorado. But the landlord, they say, won’t recognize their union or negotiate.
As the group of 70 began a news conference outside the office, they were met by a strange sight: Dozens of people arrived to counter their protest, video provided by union organizers shows. These men, most of whom appeared to be Hispanic, carried Israeli flags and signs about combating antisemitism. They admitted to an interpreter that they didn’t know why they were there, the translator told The Denver Post.
One man, wrapped in an Israeli flag, aggressively grabbed signs held by union members and could be seen assaulting at least two tenants before police apprehended him, video shows.
Union leaders say it’s clear Eichler, who is Jewish, hired these people to disrupt their event.
“This is the craziest (expletive) I’ve ever seen,” said Eida Altman, the director of the , who is organizing residents at the Capital Realty-owned Golden Spike Apartments building in south Denver and was present in New York. “It’s surreal.”
Monday’s events showed the lengths to which a private-equity landlord will go to quash its tenants’ union efforts, organizers allege, using aggressive tactics honed by employers in the days before the . Now, they say, landlords are using this playbook on tenant unions, which have fewer protections than organized labor.
Residents involved in the tenants union say they want a voice to help them improve living conditions. They want steady hot water and units free from pests. They want working elevators, doors that lock and walls without mold.
Organizers say Capital Realty hired an international law firm known for its union-busting work. The company created competing management-backed unions to confuse residents and pull support from the real tenant groups, organizers say. They’ve blocked and disrupted union meetings, pulled down flyers and barred organizers from their buildings.
With fewer federal regulators watching for bad actors, union organizers worry about who is protecting tenant rights.
“Landlords across the country will be looking into Moshe’s playbook,” Altman said. “We’re threatened with a new and awful normal.”
Eichler did not respond to interview requests. In an email, Petya B. Vassilev, Capital Realty’s general counsel, said the company has never hired people to counter union protests or incite violence. The rival unions that have cropped up in Capital Realty buildings are organized and led by tenants without involvement from outside groups or management, he said.
Residents, meanwhile, have reported that the union that staged the rally Monday has harassed, intimidated and aggressively coerced them into joining the organization, Vassilev said.
“We respect residents’ lawful right to organize, and we remain independent and focused on providing safe housing, responsive operations, timely repairs and strong resident services,” he said.
After The Post contacted Capital Realty this week, a reporter received several calls from members of rival unions and their allies. One acknowledged that Capital Realty had given them the reporter’s number. Others refused to say who gave them the information. All denied that management was involved in their unions.
‘We need a voice’
Even before Monday’s events in New York, organizers say Capital Realty displayed animus towards tenant unions in Colorado and elsewhere.
Residents at the Golden Spike apartments, 3000 W. Yale Ave., have dealt with substandard living conditions for years.
The 200-unit building for seniors and people with disabilities has seen bedbug and cockroach infestations. Hot water goes out constantly. The elevators rarely work. Floods bring black mold. The Denver Department of Public Health and Environment, between Jan. 1, 2024, and Feb. 26, 2025, fined Golden Spike’s owners more than $40,000 for public health violations — the fourth-most fined apartment complex in the city during that time frame.
Capital Realty bought the building in July. A few months later, in early November, Altman and other tenants began knocking on doors, discussing the nascent Golden Spike Tenant Union.
“We need a voice,” said Stella Thompson, who has lived at Golden Spike since 2011. “If you don’t have no voice, you’re gonna get run over by management.”
Soon after they began their efforts, residents said they noticed “no soliciting” and “no loitering” signs had cropped up around the building. Then, residents started getting knocks on their doors. Two women who live in the building wanted them to sign a petition, though they were coy about their intentions, residents said.
Finally, one of the women, Charlotte Anchondo, showed them the document, which said they were joining the Golden Spike Apartments Tenants Union. Some residents said they wouldn’t sign, knowing that their union, the Golden Spike Tenant Union, was the real tenant group for the building.
On Nov. 12, the rival union held a meeting. A Capital Realty executive flew in from New York to attend, photos and video show, greeting the residents as they entered the room. Photos taken by residents show the executive and the building’s maintenance man unloading snacks and drinks that would be served at the meeting. They stored the extra food in the manager’s office.
When the Golden Spike Tenant Union put up flyers, people with the rival union would tear them down, residents said. They threatened to call the police on union members and their guests.
The day the Golden Spike Tenant Union was supposed to meet in the 12th-floor conference room, residents arrived to find the handle missing and the door bolted shut. When the meeting finally did happen, Anchondo showed up with her grandchildren to disrupt the proceedings, video shows.
The rival union set up a table in the lobby, trying to garner support. If you signed, you got snacks and Gatorade. They even had T-shirts printed to promote their organization.
In a meeting with union organizers, Golden Spike’s property manager admitted the company created the rival tenant organization.
“I do know they created the group,” Lili Orrantia said in the meeting, according to a recording reviewed by The Post. “I don’t know the purpose.”
Vassilev, the Capital Realty representative, said Orrantia had just begun the job this month. In a statement provided by Vassilev, Orrantia said she “may have responded ‘OK’ simply to be polite, respectful and keep the conversation going. I had just learned of the union earlier that day and had no prior knowledge of it. Anything I said was merely to remain cordial.”
Federal regulations as a group that “meets regularly, operates democratically, is representative of all tenants in the development, and is completely independent of owners and their agents.” Organizers argue the rival Golden Spike union violates several portions of this definition.
Anchondo, in an interview, said her union “kind of” had leadership elections before she admitted that the petition signatures she gathered made her the union’s president.
“What do you expect from us?” Anchondo said. “We’re not in Congress, we’re not in the presidential office, we’re not in Washington, D.C.”
Anchondo denied that management had anything to do with her union. She said she disrupted the other union’s meetings and operations because “they don’t belong here.”
Deploying the playbook
It’s not just Denver where Capital Realty is accused of using these tactics.
Organizers in New Haven, Connecticut, said the company has formed management-backed tenant groups at two affordable housing complexes in the city.
One of them is led by a local landlord who, at various times, has told reporters and organizers that he’s a resident of the building and other times that he lives elsewhere, according to local media reports. He has targeting the Connecticut Tenants Union, claiming the group extorted its members.
There are clear signs that management is organizing these rival unions, said Hannah Srajer, president of the .
The board for one of the rival unions was not elected and includes a Capital Realty employee, she said. The petition the rival union collected also included signatures from residents who said they didn’t sign, she said. The group’s only meeting occurred with management present, Srajer said, and came with pizza, ice cream and a bouncy house that the union believes management paid for.
“They have obviously put money, time and effort into this oppositional union to confuse people and break organizing efforts,” Srajer said. “This is a company that’s deeply dedicated to breaking their residents’ ability to unite for better conditions.”
Sebastian Gomez, president of Sunset Ridge Tenant Union in New Haven, acknowledged that his eight-month-old union did not have elections. He denied management had any involvement in its formation. His friend, though, the local landlord who helped him start the union, doesn’t live in the building, Gomez said.
“Tenants signed with our union and they’re really happy because things are getting done,” he said in an interview.
Organizers in Kansas City said counterprotestors showed up to disrupt a news conference two weeks ago, holding signs that said how much they loved their homes. The only problem? The building they supposedly lived in is for seniors, and many of the alleged tenants were far too young, local organizers said.
One older woman who was part of the counterprotest had recently been diagnosed with dementia and couldn’t recall how or why she was outside, said Law Sims, an organizer with .
“It was heartbreaking,” he recalled.
Tara Russell, secretary of Paraclete United, the rival union, told The Post in an email that KC Tenants has been harassing them to join their union and that their group has “created conflict between residents and our staff.”
Union organizers say Capital Realty has hired , an international law firm that markets anti-union services. The firm, on its , boasts about “developing and sustaining robust union avoidance programs or support on an anti-union campaign.”
A by the company gave tips for employers “on what they need to watch for to avoid a campaign before it begins, how to detect potential organizing campaigns, what to do if a campaign begins and, finally, the best ways to defeat a union organizing campaign.”
The law firm also said it has extensive experience putting in place “workers councils,” which appear to be similar to the rival unions cropping up at these apartment complexes.
Representatives from Reed Smith could not be reached, and Vassilev did not respond to questions about the law firm.
‘Who’s gonna stop them?’
What happened in New York, though, marked a significant escalation in Capital Realty’s response to the union activity, organizers say.
Maria Sigourney, a Spanish interpreter hired by the union to translate during the rally, said she started speaking to some of the counterprotestors who were holding Israeli flags.
“Their faces told me everything,” Sigourney said. “They had no idea what they were holding. They couldn’t read English. They didn’t know what was happening or why they were there.”
Meanwhile, off to the side, ultra-orthodox men in black hats watched the proceedings, their phones out, capturing the fracas.
Sigourney said she cried after seeing the day’s events.
“It’s a reflection of what’s happening in this country,” she said. “People in power using their money to make people like us be enemies with each other. It made me sad to think they think so poorly of these people, to use them like that without even having the decency to explain to them. It was disgusting; it was really sad.”
Thompson, who attended the New York protest, said it was exhilarating to stand up for tenants, though she admitted her stomach dropped when the counterprotestors surrounded their group and got physical with its members.
“They looked like fools,” she said. “That was a win for us. Even though we didn’t get a contract, I feel like we still won.”
Management-backed worker organizations are a tried-and-true method of union-busting in America. But organizers say they’ve never seen the tactic used in residential settings.
“This is cookie-cutter labor union-busting,” Srajer said. “This is copy and paste.”
Altman, the Denver Metro Tenants Union president, said she would like to see state and local lawmakers take up the mantle to protect Colorado tenants.
Unlike worker unions — who file documents with the National Labor Relations Board to certify unions and adjudicate complaints — there is no federal body to regulate tenant unions.
Some cities, such as New Haven, Connecticut, and , have ordinances specifically related to tenant unions. New Haven also has a that registers tenant unions, investigates complaints and protects union members from retaliation by landlords.
Denver has no such ordinance or governmental body overseeing this population. The recent actions by Capital Realty, Altman said, show why the law needs to be strengthened.
“There is no umpire calling balls or strikes,” she said. “Who’s gonna stop them?”
