image source, Reuters
A general strike may not decide an election, but it can help mark what is discussed in them, especially if they coincide closely on the calendar.
In the case of Spain, which is experiencing this Wednesday the first major strike called by the country's two largest unions in 14 years, the issue is housing and salaries, which are not enough to access it.
Several factors make it an atypical strike call.
The first is the moment chosen to celebrate it: two days before the start of the electoral campaign and 18 days before the general elections to be held on November 29.
For this reason, experts say, the strike is inevitably a political event, and what happens on this day will be read in an electoral key.
The second is who it is directed against. The government of socialist Pedro Sánchez supports it and affirms that it is done "in favor of rights" and not against anyone, although people close to the president's circle went so far as to affirm that it was "against the opposition." That is, against parties that have not been in the central government since 2018. And that is also unusual.
The president of the conservative Popular Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said that if this "is a strike against the opposition," it is "a nonsense that does not exist in any country in the European Union."
Pedro Sánchez responded in a recent interview that "what is nonsense is to question the right of workers to strike."
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Finally, it should be noted that general strikes in Spain were almost always called as a protest against labor reforms or budget cuts.
It is the first time that housing is the central issue.
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"For an entire day, the public conversation will revolve around rent and salaries, which is the biggest concern of Spaniards," political scientist and political communication consultant Eduardo Bayón tells BBC Mundo.
And remember that in Spain there is no precedent for a strike like this.
"None of the previous ones were called in the pre-campaign, and all of them targeted the government of the moment: the one in 1988 against Felipe González, the one in 2002 against the decree of José María Aznar and the one in 2010 against the cuts of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero."
The unions hope that attendance will be massive, while the employers asked that the meeting be called off.
We give you 3 keys to understand this atypical general strike whose organizers hope to paralyze Spain.
1. The housing crisis
A survey carried out in June revealed that 87% of Spaniards are worried about housing and 76% believe that the State should intervene in the real estate market "as much as necessary."
Buying a home, or failing that, renting it, has become an increasingly difficult objective in Spain. And the Spanish economy continued to outperform the main powers in the euro zone in 2026 with an expansion of 0.7% from April to June.
"There are no official statistics on the price of rent, so the figures published by advertising portals are usually used. According to the best known, Idealista, rent has become more expensive by 44% since 2021, while the average salary rose by 22% in the same period," explains Maria Jesús Fernández Sánchez, senior economist at the Funcas analysis center.
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This means that the average rent for an 80 m2 apartment would represent around 50% of the average gross salary, a phenomenon that in large cities such as Madrid, Barcelona or Zaragoza can go even further.
According to the recommendations of the Bank of Spain, the maximum effort that a household should make to pay the rent or mortgage is 30% to 35% of its monthly net income.
And then there are the young people.
47.3% of Spaniards aged 26 to 34 who continue to live with their parents say that the main reason for not becoming independent is that they cannot afford to buy or rent a home due to its high prices, reported the National Institute of Statistics (INE) last April.
"The strike offers the progressive electorate a common cause above their divisions. In addition, it challenges the young and precarious voter, who is the one who most hesitates between voting or abstaining and the one who suffers the most from the housing problem. Their discomfort is no longer diffuse and begins to have named people responsible," says Bayón.
2. The two economic realities in Spain
While it is true that the Spanish economy is doing well, there is a widespread feeling that this is not reflected in the citizens' pockets.
Company profits are at their highest, but inflation remains high - almost 5% in October - and salaries are not growing at the same pace.
Therefore, for Xulio Ferreiro Baamonde, professor of Procedural Law and dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of A Coruña, the call is not only due to the difficulty of accessing housing. It goes further.
"This evident housing crisis responds to a progressive loss of purchasing power of workers, which affects access to housing, the shopping basket and in general the living conditions of the majority of the population," he points out.
"The extraction of income from the popular classes to the wealthiest classes is causing - and will continue to cause in the future - evident social tensions," he adds.
How can it be that the Spanish GDP is growing strongly but the prosperity is not felt by the majority of citizens?
"The GDP grows a lot, but so does the population. There is more GDP because there are more people working, not because each employed person earns more," explains Fernández Sánchez, an economist at Funcas.
"GDP per capita, which is the variable that is really related to the average standard of living of citizens, has grown half that of GDP, around 5%, since 2019," he points out.
3. The political reasons
In the weeks prior to Pedro Sánchez's announcement of an early call for elections, the eviction of María del Carmen Abascal, 87, popularly known as Maricarmen, "reignited a long-simmering frustration over the high cost of housing and rents in Spain's main cities," says Alana Moceri, international relations analyst, writer and professor at the IE School of Global and Public Affairs.
"While the protesters set up camps in Madrid's Puerta del Sol, Sánchez's government coalition rushed to prepare two bills aimed at alleviating the situation of tenants and stopping the 'vulture' investment funds, which are pointed out as the main responsible for the rise in housing prices," explains Moceri in a document sent to the media.
However, the right-wing parties - the opposition PP and Vox - voted against the proposal. And a small pro-independence party, Junts, which supported Sánchez's minority government to remain in power after the 2023 elections, also voted against.
"This left Sánchez's already fragile government in an unsustainable situation, making the early elections he called a few days later almost inevitable," says Moceri.
That is why it is said that this strike is not called against the government.
"Its motto is 'Salaries, housing and prices' and it was born in the tenant movement after PP, Vox and Junts overturned the housing decrees in Congress," says Bayón.
But Javier Díaz-Giménez, professor in the Department of Economics at the IESE Business School, does not think the same.
"Of course it is a strike against the government that has done nothing in 8 years to improve or solve the housing problem. Spain is designed for 40 million people and there are 50 of us," he says, referring to data from the Bank of Spain that suggests that the country has a deficit of about 750,000 homes. A shortage that is expected to increase to exceed one million in 2028.
"The unions have joined because after a decade they are becoming irrelevant and because housing is a nice social flag to sign up for," he says.
Housing is a major issue in many countries and affects citizens of all political stripes.
This strike could help mobilize disenchanted left-wing voters who would otherwise stay home on general election day.
For this reason, analysts believe, it is a window of opportunity for Sánchez's socialists, who want to reduce the advantage that the right maintains in the polls.
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