Student leader calls for general strike against PP and Vox

Student Union: general strike against PP and Vox

Puerta del Sol, tents, a megaphone and a slogan that has spread across half the internet: stop the country to defeat the right. The protest is not aimed at the Government or a specific reform. It is aimed at the opposition.

The proposal, spread on social media, is attributed to a spokesperson for the Student Union: remain in the square until «stopping the country with a general strike against the RIGHT of the PP and Vox». The statement, as it stands, contains the contradiction that has monopolized the conversation: a strike against those who do not govern.

What exactly the Student Union is proposing

The plan has three legs. Camp in Sol indefinitely. Pressure the trade unions to call a general strike, according to the thread's interpretation. And that this strike has PP and Vox as its political target. No mention appears in the disseminated message of a labor reform, a cut, or a specific law that justifies it. The cause is the adversary.

That is what has sparked the debate. The left will not stop until it brings the opposition to the place it belongs: the opposition, summarizes a comment that has circulated as both a joke and a diagnosis. The joke works because it touches a nerve that the thread repeats: a general strike is called against those with the capacity to decide. If the target is those who do not decide, the instrument loses its leverage.

Who can call a general strike in Spain?

Not a student union. In Spain, general strikes are called by workers' trade unions, and for it to affect economic activity it needs the backing of the major confederations. A student group can call for strikes in education, but it does not have the authority to paralyze productive sectors or force third parties.

Hence the second front of criticism, more uncomfortable for the caller: students, those who repeat it argue, do not have an employment relationship to interrupt. The textbook objection—you cannot strike from what you do not work—has been repeated ad nauseam and explains why much of the discussion does not enter the political substance and remains on the legitimacy of the call. The camp, meanwhile, is described in a thread message as a week of uninterrupted stay in the square, with camping tents bought at a large sporting goods store.

From payroll savings to informational picket

Here the analysis becomes economic and the juiciest part emerges. A businessman says it bluntly: if there is a general strike, he wins. He has little workload and, moreover, saves the days' wages of a workforce that would produce nothing. The reasoning, cynical or not, draws an uncomfortable scenario: the protest that wants to hurt the boss relieves him.

More detailed is the account of a participant about a method to neutralize a strike without open conflict. First, claim closure for safety under picket pressure, so no one goes to work even if they want to. Second, deduct unworked hours from overtime or vague payroll concepts, since officially there was no strike. Third, and if someone complained, reserve the worst shifts for them. The full breakdown, with its three phases and its eight hours of workday in between, circulates and shows that the strike is played out as much in the payroll as in the street. As a closing, a comment jokes about a picket that, instead of informing, takes the beers without paying.

The criticism that is not against the right

Not everyone points to the campers. One participant argues just the opposite: that the opposition is not a real opposition, that it defends the interests of lobbies and high incomes, and that is why it does not add up and cannot add up. From that reading, a strike against the right would be a way to force the appearance of a real political adversary, not to attack those already outside the Government.

The reply comes quickly. The PSOE has accumulated eight years in the Executive, four with Podemos and another four with Sumar, according to the count made by several messages in the thread. If the problem were the opposition, they argue, eight years of its own government would have been enough to solve it; and if the problem is the Government, the general strike should be called against it. That crossfire exposes what is really being discussed: not a specific measure, but who has the right to call the protest and against whom.

There are even those who pose the reverse scenario and drop it as a doubt: if the right called a general strike, many would attend without thinking; if the left calls it, the question is whether it adds or subtracts. According to one of the interpretations circulating, the right would have already hinted at the convenience of such a strike, and the left would have gotten ahead of it. From there comes an uncomfortable conclusion for the organizers: it would be enough for a sympathetic union to call strikes on the same dates to empty the other call of meaning.

The closing that unsettles

Eight years of its own Government have not been enough for the protest to target the Executive. It targets those who do not occupy it. And while the megaphone continues in the square, the only declared adversary of this strike is exactly the one that cannot call it or avoid it.