Spanish workers went on a general strike on Wednesday in a mass protest against the country’s housing affordability crisis, weeks before a snap general election.
It is the first general strike in 14 years to be jointly backed by Spain’s two largest unions, the UGT and the CCOO, alongside other labour organisations and tenants’ associations. Picket lines formed from midnight despite stormy weather, under the slogan “Salaries. Housing. Prices.”
The unions and housing campaigners want the government to intervene more forcefully in the housing market. Their demands include rent limits, a crackdown on property speculation, an end to tourist flats, automatic renewals of tenancies, and a new minimum wage agreement.
Spain is short of about 750,000 homes, according to the central bank, a deficit expected to grow to more than a million by 2028. With fewer people able to afford to buy, renting has risen sharply. The average monthly rent of €1,176 is equivalent to about 98.7% of a young person’s average monthly salary, according to the Youth Council of Spain.
Early participation was strongest in ports and car plants, the unions said, reaching 90% in both, with total stoppages reported at Volkswagen’s factory in Navarre and SEAT’s plant in Barcelona. They put turnout at 85% in the meat industry, 82% in waste collection and 75% in energy, but lower in healthcare, at 38%, and in the postal service, at 35%. These are the unions’ own figures and have not been independently verified.
Tensions flared at the start of the strike at Madrid’s Mercamadrid wholesale market, where about 1,000 protesters gathered. The CCOO’s Madrid branch said police fired pepper spray at pickets and arrested one of them, with 13 people needing medical attention. A police spokesperson confirmed the arrest but not the use of pepper spray, although he said it was used to disperse a separate picket line in the Carabanchel district.
Afternoon protest marches were threatened by two storms, Charles and Bruna, which led the weather agency AEMET to issue alerts for 14 regions over strong winds, rough seas and heavy rain.
The strike follows weeks of demonstrations and encampments provoked by the eviction and subsequent death of an 87-year-old woman in Madrid. Those protests, along with parliament’s rejection last month of government decrees aimed at curbing evictions and limiting rent pressures, prompted Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call an election for 29 November.
Mr Sánchez, whose Socialist Party lags in opinion polls, hopes to harness voter anger over housing and shift the political narrative away from a series of corruption cases involving his inner circle and a deadly train crash last month. But union leaders and many protesters have said they also hold the central government responsible for the housing crisis, as well as for Spain’s second fatal train crash this year. On Tuesday, train drivers walked out to demand more investment in maintenance and safety, causing widespread travel disruption.
Sources: Reuters (https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/workers-across-spain-stage-first-general-strike-14-years-anger-over-housing-2026-11-11/); Associated Press.
