CCOO and UGT call a general strike on November 11 over housing and wages

A 24-hour stoppage with labor and housing demands

CCOO and UGT have called a general strike for Wednesday, November 11 in Spain. The mobilization, organized together with the Tenants’ Union and other organizations, links difficulties in accessing housing with the loss of purchasing power and working conditions. According to information published about the call, the stoppage will last 24 hours.

The unions identify raising wages, reducing working hours, improving health at work, and eradicating precariousness as their objectives. They also call for price trends to be controlled and ask public authorities to adopt policies to address real estate speculation and facilitate access to decent housing.

In their manifesto, CCOO and UGT present the strike as a response to what they consider to be high corporate profits, rising prices for basic goods, and precariousness in employment and housing. These claims are part of the unions’ assessment underpinning the call; they are not facts independently established by the available information.

Organizers and supporters

The call was agreed following a meeting between CCOO and UGT, the Tenants’ Union, and other organizations. Unions including the Galician CIG and the Basque unions ELA and LAB have also announced their support and, according to published information, plan to register their own strike calls in their respective communities. The sources also mention other trade union organizations, although they do not provide consistent details about all of their participation.

The mobilization follows protests over access to housing and comes after Maricarmen Abascal, an 87-year-old woman evicted from her home in Madrid who became a symbol of these demands, died on the day the strike date was confirmed. Alicia del Río, spokesperson for the Tenants’ Union, argued that her legacy spurred the organizations to continue the struggle. The connection between her case and the mobilization is part of the context described by its organizers.

The approaching election fuels controversy

The stoppage is scheduled for two days before the start of the election campaign for the November 29 general election. This coincidence has prompted criticism and political debate. The employers’ organizations CEOE and Cepyme believe the strike is politically motivated and question whether it is justified by a labor demand. The business organization maintains that it seeks to exert pressure to bring about legislative and budgetary changes. CSIF has also expressed reservations about the political element it attributes to the call.

The unions, for their part, frame the strike around labor demands—wages, working hours, health, and precariousness—and the effect that housing and living costs, in their view, have on workers. PSOE Deputy Secretary-General María Jesús Montero said that this time the call is directed against the opposition; this is a political assessment, not a neutral description shared by all parties.

The controversy also involves a legal question. The employers’ organizations have cited Royal Decree-Law 17/1977, which provides for the illegality of strikes called for political reasons or for a purpose unrelated to the professional interests of the workers concerned. The unions justify the stoppage on the basis of their labor and social demands. The available reports set out these opposing positions but do not provide a court ruling on the legality of this call: the employers’ objection does not, by itself, constitute a legal determination.

Consequently, the call combines labor demands stated by its organizers with a central housing demand and an election timetable that has intensified the political dispute. The available information confirms the announced date and the positions of the actors cited, but does not make it possible to predict how the debate over its legal status will be resolved.