Millions of Spanish Workers Stage First General Strike in 14 Years

Detailed summary

Opposition politicians accused Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of encouraging the strike for political gain, weeks ahead of Spain’s elections.

Millions of workers on Wednesday staged Spain’s first general strike in 14 years in protest of the country’s housing crisis.

Around 4 million workers—around 17% of the country’s 23 million-strong workforce—participated in the Nov. 11 walkout, unions said. The strike was organized by Spain’s two largest unions, the General Union of Workers (UGT) and the Workers’ Commissions (CCOO), tenants’ associations, and other unions. In cities across Spain, including Barcelona, Madrid, and Valencia, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets on Wednesday to demand measures to bring down rental prices.

The last nationwide general strike was in 2012, when workers staged nationwide walkouts and downed tools to protest austerity spending cuts and sweeping labor market reforms during the Eurozone debt crisis.

The strike comes weeks before Spain’s Nov. 29 national election, in which rising rents and cost-of-living have become defining issues. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government called snap elections last month after the eviction and subsequent death of an 87-year-old tenant in September prompted days of mass protests.

In an unusual move, Sánchez’s government declared its support for the general strike. The administration appears hopeful that it will be buoyed in the election by resentment over the opposition’s block on new housing measures.

“Your eight-hour workday. Your pension. Your public healthcare. None of this fell from the sky. They were collective achievements. We won't let them be taken away. We will keep moving forward,” Sánchez posted on X on Monday, alongside a video describing Spain’s biggest social advances over the last century as the result of collective pressure.

“Every right that workers in this country enjoy was won through struggle and strikes,” Spain’s Social Rights Minister Pablo Bustinduy, an independent politician allied with Sánchez, said on Tuesday, the day before the strike.

Several unions declined to support the strike, citing its proximity to the…

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