Millions of workers across Spain took part in a general strike on Wednesday, 11 November, in a mass protest against the country's housing affordability crisis, less than three weeks before a snap general election. According to Reuters, unions said about four million workers joined the walkout, enduring stormy weather to set up picket lines in Madrid, Barcelona and dozens of other cities. It is the first general strike in Spain in 14 years.
The strike was backed by Spain's two largest unions, the UGT and the CCOO, which together represent more than a million workers, as well as tenants' associations angry about rising rents and evictions. According to Reuters, the 24-hour walkout disrupted public transport, schools, businesses, ports and industrial production, and was organised under the slogan "Salaries, Housing, Prices". The tenants' union said it still expected participation to reach five million people by the end of the day, and Spain has around 23 million workers, according to the national statistics institute.
Housing is the issue driving the protest. According to Spain's central bank, the country has a deficit of about 750,000 homes, which is set to grow to more than a million by 2028. The average rental price of €1,176 (about $1,315) is equivalent to about 98.7 percent of a young person's average monthly salary in Spain, according to the Youth Council of Spain. Rents have nearly doubled in a decade, and the spread of short-term rentals has added to the shortage, according to reporting on the crisis.
The immediate trigger for the mobilisation was the September eviction of Maria del Carmen Abascal, an 87-year-old woman known as Maricarmen who had lived in her Madrid apartment for seven decades, according to reporting on the strike's origins. Demonstrations in Madrid and Barcelona ended in clashes with police, according to the Associated Press, and dozens of people were arrested across the country, although reports published during the day gave different arrest totals and no single final figure has been confirmed.
The timing is political. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez hopes to harness voter resentment over housing in the snap general election on 29 November, to shift the political narrative away from corruption cases involving his inner circle and a deadly train crash last month, according to Reuters. Sanchez called the early election in a bid to secure four more years for his leftist coalition government. As one political scientist told the Associated Press, the Socialists need the strike to be seen as a success, without violence, so the election campaign swings back to housing.