The general strike for housing already has a date, and it is practically the closest possible to the electoral campaign. It will be held on Wednesday, November 11, therefore only two days before the start of what was previously known as the hanging of posters. With this proximity, it is ensured that the debate around housing will be kept very alive at the beginning of that period.
The decision was made yesterday afternoon at a meeting by the majority unions UGT and CC.OO, the tenants' union and other union centers such as the Galician CIG and the Basque unions ELA and LAB, among others. The news already leaked in the morning, but the official announcement was missing. “La Vanguardia” already pointed out that there were two days at stake, two Wednesdays, November 4 and 11, and finally the last one was chosen.
The news of the death of Maricarmen, the symbol of the anti-eviction fight and which has unleashed this entire movement, with camping in Sol, decrees overturned and the call for elections, was known when the official communication of the day of the strike was close. In this way, at the press conference, the spokesperson for the Tenants' Union, Alicia del Río, clearly moved, stated that "speculation costs us our lives and today rentism has finished killing our colleague Maricarmen", adding that her legacy makes us fight harder. She also added that "her legacy will make us stronger to take to the streets."
For his part, the general secretary of UGT, Pepe Álvarez, wrote on social networks that “she died due to the cruelty of a system that kicked her out of her house and left her sick on the streets. From anger and pain, for her and for the tens of thousands of people who are denied a home, to the streets. Neither houses without people nor people without houses.”
This call announced yesterday means that on the 11th the first general strike in fourteen years will take place. The last one was registered in 2012, directed against the austerity policies derived from the financial crisis, with increases in VAT, cuts in salaries and public services. Previously, other strikes of this type focused on protests against labor or pension system reforms. In this case, the particularity is twofold, that it takes place just before an election and that its underlying theme is an issue that is not strictly labor-related, such as the housing crisis.
“Don't let housing eat your salary” is the UGT's poster to call for this general strike. A protest that the two majority unions, UGT and CC.OO. They organize to mobilize “for better salaries, for decent housing and for price control in the face of inflation that weighs down our purchasing power,” according to the joint resolution agreed upon by the two organizations. At all times, the two unions play with the concepts of salaries, housing and prices as the underlying reason for the protest. They relate the housing crisis to the employment situation, criticizing job and housing precariousness, in addition to also demanding an unlocking of collective bargaining to raise wages, reduce working hours, improve workers' health and eradicate precariousness. They also ask public administrations to promote policies that end housing speculation.
The call for this strike just before an election is what has provoked criticism from the employers' association, with the CEOE doubting the legal fit that it may have, although it can only be established when the formal call arrives.
On the other hand, the unions defend the measure thoroughly. “It is a fully constitutional strike,” said Pepe Álvarez, general secretary of UGT, yesterday, insisting that what he calls a “day of struggle” wants to put on the table a problem that prevents people from being able to live with dignity, and causing the increases agreed in the agreements “not to be able to pay the cost of living because housing always disrupts everything.”
And of course, it is defended by the Tenants' Union, which is the organization that first put the call for a protest of this type on the board, and the one that has promoted it the most. The CC.OO unions. and UGT first reacted without clearly positioning themselves, until this Monday, when immediately after the call for early elections, they did take the step and joined the call.
