The main demand of the protesters is better access to housing. In addition, strikers are demanding decent wages and improved public services.
The organizers of the strike are the CCOO and UGT trade union headquarters, which unite almost 2 million workers in Spain, as well as the tenants' union. In a joint statement, the unions said they considered the strike a success. Spanish media comment that participation is uneven, depending on the region.
About 30 people were detained, and unions reported injuries
The first pickets, called informational by the organizers, started in many cities on Tuesday night. They consisted of loud marches through city streets, with participants shouting: "General strike!" and put up posters with a protest symbol: a clenched fist with a bunch of keys.
Citing data from the Ministry of Interior, the EFE agency reported that the police and Civil Guard until 11 recorded 476 incidents related to the strike day. In the early afternoon, she announced that security services had detained approximately 30 people throughout the country. In Madrid, there were clashes with the police who used pepper spray. Trade unions announced that their legal teams would analyze video recordings of the events. According to trade unionists, several people were injured throughout the country.
The UGT and CCOO condemned the "disproportionate use of force and the use of pepper spray during the strike." They assessed that this violated the right to information pickets in Madrid, and considered the use of pepper spray "an illegal method that makes Madrid a center of repression against the trade union movement."
The Madrid authorities lost a court case with the protest organizers - it was about setting a minimum level of services during the strike. The court found that those attempted to be imposed by the Madrid authorities, represented by the People's Party (PP), which is in opposition to the central socialist government, would in practice make it impossible to exercise the right to strike.
PP considers the strike to be an "electoral" one, favoring the Socialist Party of Pedro Sanchez, who defended the right to protest, recalling that the current labor law applies thanks to strikes.
Most participants in Catalonia and Andalusia
CCOO and UGT reported that "the scale of participation in the strike ranges from 41% in autonomous communities such as Castilla-La Mancha or Extremadura to over 80% in others, such as Catalonia or Andalusia." The third organizer of the strike, the tenants' union, estimated the scale of participation in the strike at 4 million people (Spain has over 49 million inhabitants).
Trade unionists pointed out that support for the strike depends, among others, on: from the industry, pointing out that energy-intensive industries (such as steel and metallurgy), the automotive, petrochemical and meat sectors, as well as logistics and transport are the industries with the highest level of participation.
They emphasized that one of the significant effects of the strike was a drop in electricity consumption by over 10 percent, greater than during other strikes and nationwide mobilizations.
According to EFE, the strike was felt most strongly on the coast of Spain, where the greatest blockades of roads and logistics centers and disruptions to public transport occurred. The agency also drew attention to flights canceled due to the strike. According to data from Aena, the airport management company, by 10.00 on Wednesday, 234 flights were canceled in Spain - the most in Barcelona and Malaga - which constituted approximately 5.2%. of 4,529 scheduled flight operations.
Some media also joined the strike, e.g. in Andalusia, Canal Sur television did not broadcast its regular program for several hours. In turn, in the Catalan branch of the public broadcaster RTVE, whose staff went on strike and provided minimal services, protesters broke into the studio of one of the programs, preventing the broadcast.
In two provinces of Andalusia in the south of the country, demonstrations were canceled due to unfavorable weather conditions.
