General
Strike Ripples Across Spain Weeks Before National Elections
Workers
in a wide range of industries walked off the job to protest rising rents and
stagnant wages, which have become central issues in the campaign.
Protesters
in Barcelona on Wednesday. Unions said millions of workers would participate in
the walkout.Credit...Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press
Reporting
from Madrid
Nov. 11,
2026Updated 10:54 a.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/11/world/europe/spain-general-strike.html
Spanish
workers staged a general strike on Wednesday for the first time in 14 years,
protesting the rising rents and stagnant wages that have become central issues
in the national election to be held this month.
Unions
said millions of workers would participate in the walkout, with tens of
thousands of Spaniards expected to join rallies in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville
and other cities in the evening. Early on Wednesday, protesters blocked roads
in Madrid, set up picket lines outside major factories in Catalonia and
disrupted transportation across Spain.
Police
officers wielding shields and batons forced hundreds of demonstrators away from
the Gran Vía, the central thoroughfare in Madrid, which rally goers had
blocked. The anger of protesters in the capital was directed largely at
“rentistas” — a Spanish term for people who live off rental income.
The
left-wing administration of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called for snap
elections early last month, after the eviction in September of María
del Carmen Abascal, an 87-year-old tenant in Madrid who became the face of
Spain’s housing crisis.
Efforts
by the government to enact legislation increasing tenants’ rights has failed to
pass Parliament, blocked by opposition parties. Mr. Sánchez apparently hopes
that frustration over that logjam will improve his chances in the vote, set for
Nov. 29.
Mr.
Sánchez’s government has been buffeted by damaging headlines over corruption
scandals, a migration
crisis and a deadly
train crash late last month. Polls show that if the election were held
today, his party and other left-wing allies would command fewer seats in
Parliament than would a group of conservative parties.
The
government has expressed support for the strike. “Every right that workers in
this country enjoy was won through struggle and strikes,” Pablo Bustinduy, the
social rights minister, said on Tuesday.
Workers
say that low wages have left them increasingly squeezed out of cities, where
rents are rising. Spain has a shortage of roughly 750,000 homes, according to
the Bank of Spain, a figure projected to exceed a million by 2028. Over the
past decade, rents in Spain have soared 87 percent, while wages have increased
only 28 percent, according to El País, a center-left newspaper.
One of
the unions that organized the strike on Wednesday, Comisiones Obreras, called
the industrial action “a resounding success” that showed solidarity with young
workers. But business associations said that union’s estimates of how many
workers would take part were overblown.
A strike
supported by a sitting government is somewhat unusual, a point not lost on
parties opposing Mr. Sánchez’s bid for re-election. Alberto Núñez Feijóo,
leader of the conservative Popular Party, said that the strike amounted to a
campaign event against a potential right-wing government.
“It’s
absurd,” he said on Monday, “a general strike against the opposition.”
Unions
said the walkout was directed at local and national governments regardless of
their political affiliation. “We don’t distinguish,” Valeria Racu, a
spokeswoman for a tenants’ union, told the Spanish public broadcaster on
Wednesday.
“We have
no patience left,” she added. “The power is in the streets.”
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