Spain held its first general strike in 14 years on Wednesday, with unions saying four million workers joined a 24-hour walkout over housing costs and wages — the first Spanish general strike driven primarily by housing rather than pay or austerity.

The stoppage was called by the country’s two largest unions, UGT and CCOO, which together represent more than a million workers, alongside tenants’ associations angry about rising rents and evictions, CNN reported. It is the first such strike since workers downed tools in 2012 against austerity measures during the eurozone debt crisis.

It falls 18 days before a snap general election on 29 November.

The number behind the anger

The central statistic is a ratio. Spain’s average rent of €1,176 (US$1,315) a month is equivalent to about 98.7 percent of a young person’s average monthly salary, according to the Youth Council of Spain, as cited by CNN. Al Jazeera puts the average gross monthly salary at €2,460 and a 50-square-metre Madrid flat at €1,170 a month as of October 2026. Housing specialists generally recommend that housing costs stay under 30 percent of income.

Spain has a shortfall of roughly 750,000 homes, which the central bank expects to exceed one million by 2028.

“I’m 36 years old and I still can’t move out on my own,” Madrid hospital IT worker Jesus Gonzalez told CNN. “Rents just keep going up, house prices just keep going up, and it’s simply impossible.”

Uneven but visible

Participation was uneven, strongest in coastal regions where housing pressure is most acute. UGT and CCOO said participation reached 90 percent at ports and in the automotive sector, with total stoppages at Volkswagen’s Navarre plant and SEAT’s in Barcelona. Grid operator Red Electrica recorded electricity demand falling by as much as 15.5 percent between 10am and 11am. Madrid metro peak-hour use was down 42 percent on the same period last week.

On Madrid’s Gran Via, protesters jangled house keys above their heads and cheered as Primark, H&M and Pull & Bear pulled down their shutters amid a heavy riot police presence.

Two storms, Charles and Bruna, disrupted afternoon marches, and a demonstration in Cadiz was suspended. Hiru News reported clashes between picketers and police at the entrance to Mercamadrid, the capital’s main wholesale market, with one person arrested.

Police reported 40 arrests by midday across 476 strike-linked incidents. The unions said they would file a criminal complaint over what they called a “disproportionate” police operation involving tear gas and batons that left 20 protesters injured.

Political context

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez did not oppose the action. “This is not a strike against anyone, but rather one in favour of a common response from all levels of government to a real problem, which is access to housing,” he said.

CNN reports Sanchez hopes housing resentment will shift the campaign away from corruption cases involving his inner circle and a deadly train crash last month; his Socialist Party still trails in polls. The strike follows weeks of protests triggered by the eviction and subsequent death of an 87-year-old woman in Madrid, and parliament’s rejection last month of decrees to curb evictions and rent increases — the rejection that prompted Sanchez to call the early election.

Business lobby CEOE opposed the strike. Vice-president Angela de Miguel told state broadcaster TVE it was counterproductive, since small firms are themselves hurt by housing shortages that make recruitment harder; the answer, she said, was building more homes and cutting taxes on construction and home purchases.

Miguel Cardoso, chief economist at BBVA Research, estimated the strike could shave 0.1 to 0.2 percent off Spain’s annual GDP, with the effect muted by remote working and the weight of less-unionised service industries.

Not reported

The four-million figure is the unions’ own; the tenants’ union separately expected five million by day’s end, against a Spanish workforce of about 23 million. No independent participation estimate is given in either account. None of the filings reports a government response to the unions’ criminal complaint, or any new housing measure announced in response to the strike.