Activities shutdown as millions of Spaniards protest at rising housing costs

Millions of people across Spain have joined the country’s first general strike in 14 years, setting up picket lines to protest against soaring housing prices before an election in which the far right could be catapulted into power.

At the centre of Wednesday’s nationwide 24-hour stoppage, singularly called for by tenants’ associations and later backed by workers’ unions, is a pushback against Spain’s deepening housing crisis.

Sandra Mora, of the Madrid Tenants’ Union, told the broadcaster RNE: “It’s extremely important to remind people that we, the workers – who are also renters or who also pay mortgages – are the ones with the power to halt production and bring the economy to a standstill.”

While workers’ unions reported high participation in the strike across several sectors, including 90% in the automotive and port sectors and 82% in waste collection, they said participation was uneven across the country. The strongest support was reported in coastal regions, such as Catalonia and Andalucía, where the soaring cost of housing has been particularly acute.

The Confederation of Tenants’ Association described the strike as a success, saying in a statement that, by midday, about 4 million people had taken part.

Many schools and universities were reportedly closed or working at minimal capacity. In Madrid, the labour action added to a continuing teachers’ strike that began nearly a month ago to demand better working conditions.

In Barcelona, workers set up roadblocks – some with burning tyres – as public transport came to a near-standstill. Pickets were in place soon after the strike began at midnight, blocking off entry to factories, markets and transport hubs. Key roads into Barcelona, including the AP-7 motorway, were blocked off in both directions.

In Madrid, scuffles broke out between pickets and police near the country’s main wholesale market, while thousands of demonstrators poured into the city’s main boulevard, halting traffic temporarily. Government officials said more than 40 people had been arrested over minor incidents across the country.

Stormy weather loomed over the plans for afternoon marches across the country after Spain’s state meteorological agency issued 14 alerts for two storms that were expected to bring strong winds, rough seas and heavy rains.

More than 90 marches were to go ahead across the country, while those in Cádiz and Huelva had to be cancelled amid forecasts of heavy rains and wind gusts of up to 75mph (120km/h).

The long-simmering frustration at soaring housing prices across Spain burst into public view in September after the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from the home in which she had lived for more than seven decades.

As protests and encampments sprang up across Spain, it cast a spotlight on a market where properties have been increasingly used as tourist lets, speculative assets and short-term rentals, sending rents rising by 80% within a decade while the cost of homes climbed by 63%.

Before Wednesday’s strike, the tenants’ union of Granada sought to highlight this link, descending on the city’s most touristy areas to vandalise about 300 lockboxes

belonging to short-term rentals. “No to capitalists, no to rent-seekers, no to their accomplices,” the organisation wrote on social media, as they posted pictures of lockboxes that had been rendered unusable.

Housing campaigners and unions have called on the government to do more to intervene in the market, with tenants’ unions demanding measures such as a crackdown on housing speculation, the elimination of tourist lets and strengthened protections for renters.

While many across Spain had seen their nominal wages rise in recent years, Unai Sordo, the head of Spain’s biggest labour union, the Workers’ Commissions, said no amount of collective bargaining would be enough to address housing costs that had climbed by as much as 12% annually. “There is one issue that is fracturing the country, and that is the difficulty many people face in accessing housing,” he told the broadcaster Cadena Ser.

Spain is holding a general election on 29 November. The snap vote was called by the Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, after rightwing parties torpedoed emergency legislation aimed at tackling the housing crisis.

Polls suggest the most likely outcome will be a rightwing coalition between the People’s party and the far-right, anti-immigration Vox party.

While Sánchez has sought to focus the campaign on social issues, the discussion has shifted to questions over infrastructure after at least 69 people were killed in Spain’s second deadly high-speed rail disaster this year.

This week Sánchez seized on the strike, whose official slogan is “Salaries. Housing. Prices”, as a way to recast the spotlight, posting a video in which he lauded developments such as the eight-hour work day and national health insurance and credited them to the labour movement and the right to strike. “It wasn’t easy, but they changed Spain,” Sánchez said.

His position sharply contrasted with the discourse of parties on the right who, in the lead-up to the strike, dismissed it as an effort by unions to help Sánchez remain in office.

• The Guardian