November 11 general strike in Spain: a union assembly votes it down

November 11 general strike in Spain: a union assembly votes it down

A general strike called for November 11 ended with a majority 'no' vote at the assembly of a mid-sized company, according to one worker's account. It is no small paradox: the very worker who describes himself as left-wing and pro-labour is the one reporting that the row at the union meeting was 'small' and that the majority rejected the stoppage because, in his view, 'there isn't a single damn objective'. The situation, he adds, was just as bad eight months earlier and nobody lifted a finger.

The diagnosis that dominates the conversation is an uncomfortable one for the organisers: Spain's November 11 general strike reads more as a political gesture than as a response to a specific labour grievance. Hence the question hovering over every message that nobody quite answers: who is this strike against? If the goal is to prop up a government rather than win a pay rise or better conditions, the ordinary worker sees no reason to lose a day's wages.

From 'todes' to the placard: language as a symptom

The call-up arrives wrapped in the ritual of political correctness: everyone, in every gendered form, including the invented todes. And that is where the easy irony appears, from those who suggest replacing the trio with a mock 'todis' to settle the debate once and for all. Behind the joke lies something more serious: the feeling that identity packaging has replaced substantive demands. When the central message is how to address those being called out rather than the concrete claim, the ability to mobilise suffers.

The reaction has its own logic. A union that cannot get an assembly at a mid-sized company to back a strike is hardly going to fill the streets. The anecdote — the small row, the majority 'no', the union rep left on his own — is worth more than any survey on willingness to join the strike.

Politics eats the union

The other battleground is politicisation. Some argue that the PSOE (Spain's Socialist Party) 'is neither socialist nor workers' nor even a party', and that phrase sums up the discontent of part of the left-wing electorate, which feels the union structure has become a transmission belt for a government agenda. In that narrative, the strike does not defend the worker: it defends the tenant of La Moncloa (the Spanish prime minister's residence).

The practical consequence is demobilisation. If the stoppage is perceived as politics rather than a labour dispute, the disaffected worker has a perfect excuse not to take part. And the union, which needs a critical mass for the strike to be a fact rather than a headline, is left with the photo but without the backing.

The alucinación to Madrid and the picket that never comes

Some have already bought their high-estimulante ilegal train tickets for the Madrid demonstration, confirming that the event will have its usual liturgy of buses and placards. But alongside that image coexist less epic ones: that of the person warning that if a picket blocks his way to work, 'we'll be opening doors the next day'. The threat, half in jest, reveals the rift between mobilised activists and the worker who just wants to make ends meet.

The open question is the usual one: can a general strike with no clear objective and politics as its banner be anything more than a gesture? The figures from the assembly recounted here suggest not. And on November 11, with the tickets already bought, it will become clear whether the 'no' of one mid-sized company was the exception or the rule.