MADRID — Millions of Spanish workers walked off the job on Wednesday in the country’s first general strike in 14 years, pressing the government to confront a housing crisis that has become the central grievance of the national campaign less than three weeks before an early election.
The stoppage, backed by Spain’s two biggest unions, UGT and CCOO, slowed public transport and factory output across the country. Many schools and universities closed outright or ran at minimal capacity. Picket lines formed outside transit depots and at the gates of large industrial employers.
The strike’s political trigger was the televised eviction of an 87-year-old Madrid woman known publicly as Maricarmen, whose death after being removed from her apartment turned her into a symbol of renters priced out of the Spanish housing market. Housing activists seized on the outcry to call the strike, and the unions quickly joined.
Organizers are demanding an end to short-term tourist-apartment licenses, a crackdown on real-estate speculation, and automatic lease renewals for long-term tenants. The unions, for their part, are also pushing for stronger government intervention in the housing market and a new nationwide minimum-wage agreement.
The strike lands in a fraught political moment. Right-wing parties in Parliament recently blocked emergency housing measures, which prompted Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call the early vote. A deadly high-speed train collision has since dominated headlines and weighed on his campaign.
One political scientist quoted by the AP argued that the left needs the strike to succeed peacefully to steer the final weeks of the campaign back onto housing, while the right stands to benefit if the protests turn violent. Polls currently show the far right in position to enter government.
