In Santander According to the organisers, more than 1,600 people took part on 11 November 2026 in a protest for the general strike They marched. The procession began around midday at the seat of the Government of Cantabria and made its way to the town hall square. According to the newspaper elDiario.es, the Spanish National Police did not provide an estimate; the number of participants has therefore not been independently confirmed.
The demonstration in the capital of the northern Spanish region of Cantabria had been called by, among others, the union Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, the housing union and the student union. The Communist Party of Cantabria, a socialist youth organisation and other civil society groups also joined the call. Employees of the postal platform Marea Postal joined them at the town hall, according to elDiario.es.
A university lecturer at the University of Cantabria, whom the newspaper identified by the first name Fran, highlighted the financial consequences of taking strike action during the march. He said he had personally lost around 150 euros as a result of the strike day. In his view, costs like these deter employees from taking part in strikes. His figure relates to his personal circumstances and is not an average.
In a joint statement, the organising groups called, among other things, for a regional housing law, lower rents and limits on holiday lets, according to the newspaper. Their employment-related demands include a 30-hour working week.
The protest was part of a nationwide general strike. In Santander, pickets from various unions had already temporarily disrupted traffic earlier that morning. The news agency Europa Press reported separate actions by the unions Comisiones Obreras and Unión General de Trabajadores as well as other groups. The first two unions had announced a separate demonstration for the evening.
Reports differed on the extent to which employees took part in the strike. For the first shifts in the morning, Comisiones Obreras and Unión General de Trabajadores put participation in Cantabria at 41 per cent, mainly in industry. The employers’ association, by contrast, reported that most businesses and sectors were operating largely as normal. The figures for the demonstration in Santander do not, in themselves, indicate how many people were on strike.
Editor: Mira Cadena (Article created with AI assistance).