The general secretary of CCOO, Unai Sordo, anticipates an “important” follow-up to the general strike called for this Wednesday, November 11, although he admits that its impact will be uneven and “asymmetrical” depending on the territories and the different sectors of activity.
In an interview with Europa Press, Sordo has sent a direct message to those who still doubt whether to take part, urging them to join the strike in their companies and, if that is not possible for them, to attend the mobilizations and demonstrations planned for that date.
“To those who are undecided, I would say that if they can and are in a position to do so, stop work at their workplaces and that, in any case, they should attend the mobilizations,” Sordo said, insisting on the importance of combining the strike in workplaces with a massive presence in the streets.
Even though the union sets as its goal “important” support in the workplaces, the CCOO leader believes that the real balance of the day should be assessed “based on the visibility of people in the street” during the demonstrations called.
The union leader stressed that the housing crisis, the central focus of this strike, directly involves all public administrations: “None of the three administrations is innocent about the housing situation in Spain.”
Sordo argues that the priority of November 11 is to “generate a wave of social mobilization in favor of housing becoming part of the pillars of the Welfare State in the coming years” and to correct the orientation of the policies applied in recent decades.
The person in charge of CCOO explained that this call moves away from the “old industrial strike” and responds to a different labor reality, shaped, among other factors, by the generalization of telework.
Given the possibility that many companies will resort to remote work to minimize the effects of the strike on mobility, Sordo recalled that these workforces “can also exercise their right to strike by disconnecting from telework that day, exactly the same as in any situation of being physically present.”
The role of unionism and new generations
Sordo has categorically rejected the idea that CCOO has limited itself to following the trail of social groups such as the Sindicato de Inquilinas when calling the protest.
"Could we not have called off the strike and simply called for the mobilization? Yes, but surely these new generations would have felt alien to the element that prevents them from reaching adult life (housing). And I think that the journey we have made has been that: to say, look, we are going to give shape to unemployment and therefore we are going to enter into the iconography of the general strike, knowing that it will be very heterodox and that it will not be an industrial strike in the usual sense," he explained.
According to CCOO leader, the organization has made an updated reading of society in 2026, very different from that of the 1980s and 1990s, when the classic labor conflict proved to be clearer and more homogeneous.
"Today people aged 35 and under surely see that their main focus of inequality, or of not being able to access adult life, does not come from an extremely high rate of youth unemployment -which has been reduced to less than half-, but from the fact that, even working and earning an average wage, they can in no way have a flat," he said.
For that reason, he defended that class organizations broaden their scope of action beyond traditional frameworks: "Class trade unionism cannot remain in the ivory tower of wages, the collective agreement, and the works council; it has to open up to a different scenario and move in more liquid and fluid dynamics".
Uneven territorial implementation of the strike
In statements to Europa Press, Sordo described the strike as an "intergenerational embrace" in which workers with stable employment and those who find themselves in the "labor outer areas" will converge, with a degree of follow-up that will vary greatly depending on the area.
"No one is unaware that it is not the same to have the housing problem in Ibiza, Menorca, Málaga, Madrid, Barcelona or Bilbao, as in Zamora or in inland Spain, where the problem is that it does not retain people and the houses remain empty," he said.
For that reason, he recalled that CCOO has incorporated among its demands the improvement of wages and the defense of public services, which it considers essential to cohere and sustain the most depopulated territories.
In response to those who argue that 11N is a strike aimed against opposition parties, a thesis spread from conservative sectors and suggested by former minister María Jesús Montero, Sordo rejected it decisively: "It is not a general strike against the opposition, but it does refer to many political and institutional actors".
On this line, he has insisted that, although the autonomous communities concentrate most of the powers in housing, in the face of a structural problem of this scale, "no institution can put on a blindfold".
He has also pointed to the legislative power, reminding that PP, Vox and Junts "avoided the validation of two royal decrees-laws that, in part, helped alleviate housing problems".
Asked whether the Urda (Toledo) rail accident can condition participation in the strike, Sordo has placed its effects on a broader emotional plane, without linking it directly to the Wednesday response to the strike.
Thus, he has admitted that the incident has caused "an important emotional shock", but he has stressed that in CCOO they perceive that collective impression in general and "not so much with regard to the strike".
Relationship with the CEOE and legality of the strike
The top executive of CCOO has directly linked the call for the 11N with the agreement on collective bargaining (AENC) that the CEOE is resisting to reach, emphasizing that "homes are paid for with a salary and the rise in inflation is met with a wage".
In this sense, Sordo has accused the employers' organization of maneuvering to keep the renewal of the AENC blocked: "I am convinced that the employers' organization has been waiting for some time to see whether there is a change of political cycle in order to negotiate seriously depending on the configuration of majorities".
As he indicated, the business leadership aspires to a possible government supported by the right and the far right that favors "a scenario of reducing labor costs, decreasing gross wages, exemption in sick leave for common contingencies, and a radical modification of labor legislation".
In light of this outlook, Sordo has reiterated that the role of unions is to "press through mobilization". He has recalled that, for this purpose, CCOO and UGT established a strike fund endowed with four million euros to back labor conflicts such as the five-day stoppage in the meat sector.
Regarding the possibility that the employers' organization will challenge the general strike once it has been held, the union leader has ruled it out categorically: "They are not going to do it, they are not going to do it. These are things that are said to attract media attention and due to impulses that make no sense".
In the face of the business argument that it is an illegal strike and far removed from the strictly labor sphere, Sordo has defended that access to housing directly conditions disposable income and sociolabor conditions, and that any mobilization promoted by CCOO, such as the one on next Wednesday, incorporates a clear wage component, even more so with an interannual CPI at 4.9%.