Millions Strike Across Spain as Housing Costs Reshape Election

Spain's first general strike in 14 years drew millions of workers onto picket lines on Wednesday, with unions reporting 90% participation in the automotive and port sectors and 82% in waste collection. The 24-hour stoppage targeted soaring housing costs eleven days before a general election that polls say could deliver power to a rightwing coalition.

The country's largest unions and tenants' associations backed the strike under the official slogan "Salaries. Housing. Prices." Participation was uneven, unions acknowledged, with the strongest support in coastal regions such as Catalonia and Andalusia — precisely the areas where housing costs have risen fastest.

The strike's economic weight is the movement's core argument. Sandra Mora of the Madrid Tenants' Union told the broadcaster RNE: "It's extremely important to remind people that we, the workers – who are also renters or who also pay mortgages – are the ones with the power to halt production and bring the economy to a standstill."

How disruptive was the strike in practice?

Public transport in Barcelona came to a near-standstill as workers set up roadblocks, some with burning tyres. In Madrid, picketers scuffled with police near the country's main wholesale market, and demonstrators dragged recycling bins onto the streets to block traffic. Government officials said 27 people had been arrested over minor incidents by midday.

Many schools and universities closed or ran at minimal capacity. In Madrid, the labour action compounded a teachers' strike that began nearly a month ago over working conditions.

Storms threatened to undercut the afternoon marches. Spain's state meteorological agency issued 14 alerts for two storms expected to bring strong winds, rough seas and heavy rain.

What is behind the anger over housing?

The immediate trigger came in September, when 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal was evicted from the home she had lived in for more than seven decades. Protests and encampments spread across the country, exposing a market where properties increasingly serve as tourist lets, speculative assets and short-term rentals.

The numbers explain the fury. Rents have risen 80% within a decade while home prices climbed 63%. For a typical household, that means rent now consumes a far larger share of income than it did ten years ago — the context unions cite when demanding intervention.

Tenants' unions want limits on evictions of vulnerable people, rent freezes and a crackdown on short-term rentals. The Granada tenants' union took a more direct route before the strike: it descended on the city's most touristed areas and vandalised about 300 lockboxes belonging to short-term rentals, posting pictures of the rendered-unusable devices on social media alongside the message: "No to capitalists, no to rent-seekers, no to their accomplices."

Unai Sordo, head of the Workers' Commissions, one of the country's biggest labour unions, told Cadena Ser radio: "There is one issue that is dividing the country: the struggle to access housing."

How does the strike fit the election?

Spain votes on 29 November. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of the Socialist party called the snap election after rightwing parties torpedoed emergency housing legislation. Polls suggest a rightwing coalition between the People's party and the far-right, anti-immigration Vox is the most likely outcome.

Sánchez has tried to steer the campaign toward social issues, though the debate shifted to infrastructure after at least 69 people were killed in Spain's second deadly high-speed rail disaster this year. This week he seized on the strike to recast the spotlight, posting a video crediting the eight-hour workday and national health insurance to the labour movement and the right to strike. "It wasn't easy, but they changed Spain," Sánchez said.

The right read the same events as electoral theatre. Rightwing parties said in the lead-up that unions were trying to help Sánchez remain in office.

Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the rightwing leader of the Madrid region, accused striking workers of "holding citizens hostage". She added: "Everything is chaotic, everything is gridlocked." Ayuso, who this year faced questions over her administration's alleged decision to spend €6.3m (£5.4m) of public funds on a residential penthouse as a temporary office, acknowledged union activity as a constitutional right — then said she had vented to People's party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, whom polls suggest will be the next prime minister. "I'll confess something," she told Spanish television. "I spoke to Feijóo and I told him: 'Promise me this garbage will end.'"

The strike's uneven participation and the arrests, though limited, give both camps evidence for their narratives. What remains unanswered is whether any government after 29 November can deliver housing policy that survives the parliamentary arithmetic that killed the last one.