# Spain's first general strike in 14 years over housing crisis

> Millions of workers walked out on November 11 to demand action on rents weeks before a national election that hinges on the cost of living.
- Title: Spain's first general strike in 14 years over housing crisis
- Summary: Millions of workers walked out on November 11 to demand action on rents weeks before a national election that hinges on the cost of living.
- Keywords: spain, general strike, housing crisis, pedro sánchez, november 2026 election, ugt, ccoo, rental prices, workers' rights, TIME
- Source: TIME — https://time.com/article/2026/11/12/spain-general-strike-housing-crisis-national-election-sanchez
- Author: Miranda Jeyaretnam
- Published: 2026-11-12T10:30:00+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: spain, general strike, housing crisis, pedro sánchez, november 2026 election, ugt, ccoo, rental prices, workers' rights, news, world
## Millions walk out over housing
Around four million workers, about seventeen percent of Spain's workforce, staged a general strike on November eleventh to protest the country's housing crisis.
## First strike in fourteen years
The last nationwide general strike was in two thousand twelve, when workers protested austerity spending cuts and labour market reforms during the Eurozone debt crisis.
## Unions and tenants organised action
Spain's two largest unions, the General Union of Workers and the Workers' Commissions, organised the strike alongside tenants' associations and other unions.
## Protests across major cities
Hundreds of thousands took to streets in Barcelona, Madrid, and Valencia on Wednesday demanding measures to bring down rental prices across the country.
## Election looms weeks away
The strike comes weeks before Spain's November twenty-ninth national election, where rising rents and cost of living have become defining issues for voters.
## Government backs the walkout
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's government declared support for the strike, hoping to benefit electorally from resentment over the opposition's block on housing measures.

> Every right that workers in this country enjoy was won through struggle and strikes.
## Employers dispute turnout numbers
Unions claimed four million participated and expected five million by day's end. Spain's main employers' confederation estimated less than five percent of workers joined.
## Disruption and violence reported
Police reported at least seventy-five arrests and one thousand forty-four incidents linked to the strike. In Barcelona, protesters smashed shop windows and burned rubbish containers.
## Opposition attacks Sánchez
Conservative and far-right opposition parties accused Sánchez of stoking the strike for electoral gain, calling it a campaign tool rather than genuine labour action.

> This is an electoral strike.
## Housing crisis sparked by eviction
An eighty-seven-year-old tenant, Maricarmen Abascal, died two weeks after eviction in September when her landlord sought to raise rent fivefold, sparking mass protests.
## Rents far outpace wage growth
Rents increased eighty-seven percent between two thousand fifteen and two thousand twenty-five, while wages rose around thirty percent. Average monthly rent is one thousand one hundred seventy-six euros.
## Young people delayed independence
The average age for moving out of parents' homes is now thirty point two years. Youth emancipation rate has fallen to a record low of fourteen point five percent.
## Key takeaway

Around four million Spanish workers staged the country's first general strike in fourteen years on November eleventh to protest a housing crisis that has made rents unaffordable.