Housing takes centre stage

Unions across Spain have formally filed a general strike for 11 November, with housing at the top of the demands. In Andalusia, UGT and CCOO presented the call at the regional employment ministry on Thursday, 22 October. María del Mar Serrano, UGT Andalucía's organisation secretary, said rent or buying a home can absorb up to 70% of a worker's salary, a situation she called unsustainable. She also said the sixth Agreement on Employment and Collective Bargaining (AENC) remains unsigned because there is no deal with employers, and that numerous collective agreements are stalled.

In the Basque Country and Navarre, ELA, LAB, ESK, Steilas, Etxalde, Hiru and housing groups have backed the strike and asked the regional governments to guarantee housing as a right. Their demands include expropriating speculators and banning speculative activity, and they want housing treated like health and education. They describe the strike as a chance to deepen the Basque framework for labour relations and social protection.

Asturias and the wage gap

In Asturias, CCOO and UGT, together with housing groups, registered the strike call on Thursday. Javier Fernández Lanero, UGT Asturias secretary general, said the cost of housing is taking a growing share of wages and keeping young workers from building a life even when they have jobs.

“We are institutionalising the existence of the working poor.”

José Manuel Zapico, CCOO Asturias secretary general, said his data show housing up 80% in Asturias against a 24% wage increase. He asked for pay rises of around 7%, a minimum wage of at least 1,300 euros, and warned inflation could approach 5% by year end according to his forecasts.

Housing cost rise80%

Wage rise24%

Housing cost rise

80 %

Wage rise

24 %

Data from the article text

Employers push back

Javier González de Lara, president of the Andalusian employers' confederation CEA, told Canal Sur Television that employers do not fully understand why the strike was called. He said companies would have to pay for the 24-hour stoppage and find a legal framework that makes it a labour strike. He criticised the two housing decrees approved by the Permanent Deputation after Congress rejected them, and argued that a housing plan should focus on employers, for example by cutting the tax burden on developers.

On wages, González de Lara said the minimum wage is not 1,200 euros but 1,900 across fourteen payments, and that a gap of close to 700 euros goes to the tax authority and the state through social contributions. He also put the rise in the minimum wage since 2018 at 66%, while EL PAÍS reports a 66% rise since 2019 under coalition governments.

Unions and the 29 November election

The union leaders say they are not trying to sway votes but to set the campaign agenda. Pepe Álvarez, UGT general secretary, urged left-wing parties to focus on citizens' problems rather than their internal debates, and tied pensions to the strike demands. He called it an insult to claim the public pension system would collapse, as Ester Muñoz, the PP spokesperson in Congress, had said.

Unai Sordo, CCOO general secretary, warned that a rise of the far right could put institutional frameworks into question.

“We are playing for much more than an election.”

According to EL PAÍS, both leaders warned that a PP and Vox government would bring free and costless dismissal and a loss of rights. Labour minister Yolanda Díaz and Social Security minister Elma Saiz attended the RTVE and EFE breakfast where Álvarez and Sordo spoke.

Catalonia and Segovia

In Catalonia, Belén López, CCOO Catalunya secretary general, said negotiations have given way to confrontation.

“Now we are entering the stage of confrontation.”

UGT and CCOO in Catalonia registered the strike with the regional labour department alongside the Sindicat de Llogateres, which was invited to take part. CCOO's three goals there are approving the housing decrees in the Permanent Deputation, forcing employers to negotiate the Catalan interprofessional agreement, and setting the union's social agenda. López warned of new mobilisations if the government after the 29 November election gives no answers. In Segovia, CCOO held an assembly of its delegates on 21 October to prepare the strike.

Timeline of the strike call