Millions of workers across Spain are striking to demand government action over the country’s housing crisis, less than three weeks before a national election that could bring the far right to power.
The 24-hour walkout, which began at midnight on Wednesday, disrupted public transport and forced businesses, factories and shops to scale back operations or close entirely across the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy. It’s Spain’s first general strike in 14 years.
Minor incidents were reported in the first hours, including roadblocks with burning tyres in Barcelona, the second-largest city in the country. There were also scuffles between picketers and police near the country’s main wholesale market on the outskirts of the capital, Madrid.
The two main unions calling for the strike, UGT and CCOO, reported widespread participation in the early hours “with significant work stoppages in strategic sectors”, including 90 percent in the automotive and port sectors, according to a statement posted on social media.
The average rent in Spain has almost doubled over the past 10 years, eating into household budgets and angering voters.
The trigger for a wave of mass protests was the forced eviction in September of Maricarmen Abascal , an 87-year-old woman from Madrid who died a few days later. Housing activists leveraged the uproar over Maricarmen’s eviction to call for the general strike.
Spain’s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called a snap election for November 29 after his minority government failed to secure parliamentary approval for a package of housing measures proposed in response to the protests.
“This is not a strike against anyone, but rather one in favour of a common response from all levels of government to a real problem, which is access to housing,” he said in an interview published Sunday in the daily newspaper La Vanguardia.
The strike has been rejected by business groups, which have described it as an election-related protest, and criticised by the conservative opposition Popular Party (PP) and far-right Vox.
PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo warned that unions risked being linked to Sanchez “forever” if they went ahead with the strike in the run-up to the election.
Feijoo, whose party leads opinion polls, said going ahead with the strike was a “serious mistake” following a high-speed train collision last month in central Spain that killed 69 people.
Spain’s average gross monthly salary is about 2,460 euros, while renting a 50-square-metre apartment in Madrid cost an average of 1,170 euros a month in October, according to property portal Idealista.
That amounts to nearly half the average gross salary, and 98.7 percent of the average young person’s income, according to the Youth Council of Spain. It’s well above the 30 percent share commonly recommended by housing experts and public institutions.
