Spanish unions call general strike for November 11 over housing crisis

Spain’s two largest trade unions, UGT and CCOO, have announced a nationwide general strike over housing issues for November 11, just weeks before a snap general election. It is the first general strike jointly backed by the pair in 14 years, according to Reuters.

The unions said on Wednesday they had agreed on the date, although it still needed formal ratification by other unions in a meeting later that day. The call is the latest escalation in a wave of protests triggered by the eviction of an 87-year-old woman, Maricarmen, from her Madrid home, with activists camping on one of the capital’s main squares demanding solutions to a mounting housing crisis.

elconstitucional reports the strike will be a full 24-hour national stoppage led by Unai Sordo of CCOO and Pepe Álvarez of UGT, linking housing costs to wages. The previous joint precedent was the November 14, 2012 strike against Mariano Rajoy’s austerity programme. Around 70,000 people marched in Madrid at the weekend under a “towards the general strike” banner, according to the Government Delegation.

The call follows parliament’s rejection last week of decrees aimed at curbing evictions and limiting rent pressures, which prompted Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to bring forward a snap election for November 29.

The scale of the crisis is stark: Spain has a deficit of about 750,000 homes, set to exceed one million by 2028, according to the Bank of Spain. The average monthly rent of €1,176 amounts to 98.7% of a young person’s average salary, Youth Council of Spain figures show.