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Spain began a 24-hour general strike on Wednesday despite bad weather as part of a mass protest against the country's lack of affordable housing weeks before snap parliamentary elections.
This is the first general strike in 14 years, which was jointly supported by Spain's two largest unions, UGT and CCOO, as well as other trade union organizations and tenant associations, outraged by rising rents and evictions.
“We will not stop until we transform the housing model in this country from bottom to top, so that housing serves people to live in rather than the interests of a minority living off rental income,” Alicia del Rio, a spokeswoman for the Madrid Tenants Union, said as the strike began at midnight.
Spain faces a shortage of about 750,000 homes, according to the central bank. The country is expected to be short of more than a million homes by 2028.
As fewer people can afford to buy a home, rents have skyrocketed, putting pressure on the market. According to the Spanish Youth Council, the average rental price (€1,176) is equivalent to approximately 98.7% of the average monthly salary of a young person in Spain.
Plans for mass protest marches this afternoon were thrown into jeopardy by two storms dubbed Charles and Bruna. Spanish weather agency AEMET issued warnings for 14 regions for strong winds, rough seas and heavy rain.
According to the UGT and CCOO trade unions, up to 90% of workers in the port and automotive industries initially joined the strike. A "total shutdown" was reported at plants including the Volkswagen plant in Navarra and the SEAT plant in Barcelona.
The unions also estimated initial turnout in the meat industry at 85%, in waste collection at 82% and in the energy sector at 75%. According to their data, in the health and social services sector, as well as in the postal service, the number of people who joined the strike was noticeably lower - 38% and 35%, respectively.
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At the start of the strike, tensions arose at Madrid's Mercamadrid wholesale market, where about 1,000 protesters had gathered. The Madrid branch of the CCOO union reported on social media X that police used pepper spray against the picketers and arrested one of them. 13 strikers required medical attention.
A police spokesman confirmed the arrest but did not confirm the use of pepper spray, although he noted that it was used to disperse another picket line in the Carabanchel area.
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The strike follows weeks of demonstrations and tent camps following the eviction and subsequent death of an 87-year-old woman in Madrid.
In October, the Spanish parliament rejected a government decree aimed at curbing the number of evictions for non-payment and curbing runaway rental costs. Along with ongoing protests, this forced Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call early elections for November 29.
The government largely blames rising rents and an insufficient housing supply on the right-wing opposition that governs many regions and municipalities.
The strike could help the government put the housing crisis back at the top of the political agenda, said Luke Stobart, a political analyst who writes about social movements and politics in Spain.
“Sanchez has a history of taking risks and often being successful when he decides to take them. And he knows that if there is a general strike before the election, it will force everyone to talk about housing. And that's what's happening - it's helping to keep housing at the forefront of the conversation in the run-up to the election," Stobart said.
Although Sánchez did not directly support the strike, he praised collective action as the driving force behind the country's social achievements.
“Your eight-hour workday. Your pension. Your public health care. None of this fell from the sky. These were collective achievements. We will not allow anyone to take them away from us,” the prime minister said in a video message on Monday.
However, his Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) has lost support in recent months over its approach to the migrant crisis in Ceuta. In addition, the party is plagued by a series of corruption scandals in which Sanchez’s inner circle and members of his family are involved.
Some unions - the Basque unions ELA and LAB, Galicia's CIG and Spain's CGT - also spoke out against the government, accusing regional and national authorities of failing to combat speculation in the housing market.
“It is unclear whether the leaders of the major unions and the government will be able to control the course of events,” Stobart said. He warns that the strike could escalate into a wider wave of protests similar to the one that has rocked France since late summer. This could potentially backfire on the Spanish government.
The popularity of the party of the current prime minister was not helped by the recent major train accident, which claimed the lives of 68 people - the second fatal railway accident this year. Train drivers went on strike on Tuesday to demand more investment in maintenance and safety, causing widespread disruption to rail services.
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The crash gave the opposition - the conservative People's Party (PP) and the far-right Vox party - an opportunity to focus the national debate on transport safety and government incompetence.
The People's Party is now leading in opinion polls and could form a government together with Vox. If this happens, a far-right party will be part of the Spanish government for the first time since the end of Francisco Franco's dictatorship in 1975.
Both opposition parties have called the strike politically motivated, accusing unions that its true target is the opposition, especially in the run-up to elections. They also criticized the timing of the strike, which came the day after a state funeral for victims of the train disaster.
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