The general secretary of CCOO, Unai Sordo, defended this Tuesday in Zaragoza that public services and the State must offer security and stability to the social majorities in areas such as infrastructure, healthcare, pensions, education or care for dependency.
Sordo traveled to Zaragoza to speak at the expanded committee of CCOO Aragón and at several workers' assemblies, in the framework of the preparation for the general strike on November 11.
He detailed that "the 'leit motiv' of this strike has been the housing problem in Spain associated with the situation of wages and prices" and that "there is a third leg, which is the defense of public services".
He insisted that "for Comisiones Obreras, the situation of access to housing for millions of workers is the great socioeconomic fracture that our country suffers, with an evident generational bias. This does not mean that the housing problem only affects young people, but it affects young people in a very particular way".
According to what he emphasized, "the issue of housing is mediating the life of many families", recalling that the average age of emancipation exceeds 30 years in Spain, "an absolutely abnormal and anachronistic situation that we should not interpret as a normal situation".
He added that "there are hundreds of thousands of family, couple, cohabiting units that do not separate even though their sentimental bonds have broken because the two people, individually, cannot access a home whether for rent or ownership", which is also "a ticking time bomb" in relation to gender violence.
In this context, he maintained that in housing matters "palliative and regulatory measures are needed", but above all, "a great public infrastructure of housing at protected prices that facilitates housing solutions for millions of people in the next ten years and that lowers market prices".
He has warned that "no matter how much rents are capped in stressed areas; no matter how much the entry of private operators, investment funds and vulture funds into the hoarding of homes to speculate with their price is prevented, which has to be done and in my opinion they have to be thrown out of this country; no matter how much rents are extended to avoid abusive increases and no matter how much the two royal decree-laws that lapsed in parliamentary proceedings are enacted, it does not serve to really limit the problem of runaway prices that housing in ownership or rental housing has in Spain".
Sordo has called on all political parties to clarify, ahead of the general elections on 29N, "whether they want to invest at least 1% of GDP over the next decade to achieve at least one and a half million homes at protected prices that are never declassified".
He has underlined that "it has to be a show of political will of whether, in truth, the housing problem wants to be addressed or whether housing continues to be conceived as an investment asset, of speculation and private business instead of as a social good of first necessity for entire generations of Spanish citizens".
Employment, wages and inflation
Regarding the labor market, he has indicated that it is "very mediated" by the process of regularization of migrants, so that the employed population will continue to grow and there will be "specific upturns" in the unemployment rate in the next quarter.
He has highlighted that "the employment situation in Spain is the best we have had in recent economic history, with more people working than ever, a salary increase that in terms of the average rise in wages will surely stand in 2026 above between 3 point something and 4 point something percent".
However, he has warned that, although wages have increased, "this is not enough to face the outrageous cost of housing", since "there is no collective agreement that can withstand a 12% year-on-year increase in the price of housing".
He has insisted that "we have to raise wages because prices are going up and not just those of housing", recalling that inflation stands at 4.9%.
He pointed out that "families, even with two jobs, even with average salaries that may be increasing, struggle to make ends meet because of the increase in ordinary costs", which hit lower incomes harder.
He linked this rising cost of living to the international context, by noting that "the emergence of the far right in the main economies of the world is driving the world crazy".
In this vein, he stated that "the prices borne by a Spanish working family are considerable, a direct consequence of the emergence of the far right in countries like the United States, in the wars in Iran or in the invasion of Ukraine".
He added that "the madness of invading countries, the madness of closing straits such as the Strait of Hormuz or the other strait that exists, or the madness of invading Ukraine" are factors that fuel inflation.
He also pointed out that business margins in sectors such as fuel refining or the electricity sector "are at historic records".
He denounced that "we find it shameful that the increase in costs caused by wars is passed on to consumer prices in order to keep company profits intact or even improve them, and it is a scandal that, moreover, this is compatible with a CEOE that refuses to raise wages through a major agreement on collective bargaining at the state level; it is in that scenario that we place employer responsibility and they are among the main recipients of this general strike call". The unions are demanding wage increases of between 4 and 7% and a 7% increase in the interprofessional minimum wage.
He added a third element: families are devoting an ever larger share of their income "to paying for what the public administration increasingly provides in a worse way or in lower-quality public services", citing healthcare or education, with fewer places in vocational training or postgraduate studies.
After referring "to what we have seen with the situation of the railway system, with the situation of care for dependency, home help, residences, the cost that this has for families", he wanted to launch "a very clear message regarding public services: What we need is not less State, it is more State".
He has questioned "does anyone really think that reducing public revenues by 4% of GDP can achieve anything other than sending this country to ruin, to external dependence, to subalternity to the debt markets?", in reference to Vox, warning that this proposal would imply a "drastic" reduction in pensions or "ruining" healthcare, education and care for dependency and "letting our infrastructures rot".
Assemblies and union mobilization
The general secretary of CCOO Aragón, Manuel Pina, has explained that Sordo is taking part this Tuesday in the expanded committee of the union and in three workers' assemblies of both public administrations and private companies.
He has announced that next Monday, November 9, a joint assembly with UGT will be held to kick off the general strike.
Pina has stressed that the trade union organizations aspire for 11N to be "a historic day" with "that point of differentiation" that this general strike has, which "has a social leg". He has emphasized that "public services are not only healthcare, education, but also care, and even lately we are also bringing in the issue of housing".
He has announced that the day of stoppage will be accompanied by rallies in different towns, not only in the three capitals, but presumably also in Monzón and Calatayud, and that demonstrations will be held in the afternoon.