Workers take part in a picket ahead of the general strike in Seville. (EPA Images pic)MADRID: Spanish workers went on a general strike on Wednesday, setting up picket lines despite stormy weather in a mass protest against the country's housing affordability crisis a few weeks before a snap general election.
It is the first general strike in 14 years to be jointly backed by Spain's two largest unions, UGT and CCOO, as well as other labour organisations and tenants' associations angry about rising rents and evictions.
"We won't stop until we transform this country's housing model from top to bottom so that houses are for living instead of being at the service of the rentier minority," said Alicia del Rio, spokesperson for the Madrid Tenants' Union, as the strike began at midnight.
