Spain's two largest unions, CC OO and UGT, called workers off the job Wednesday in the country's first general strike in 14 years, under the slogan "Salaries. Housing. Prices."

Millions of workers shut down businesses and public transportation nationwide, with protests planned in more than 50 cities and towns, according to AP reporting carried by ABC News. About 5% of flights were canceled at Spanish airports, per airport operator AENA.

The strike broke the usual mold for Spanish labor actions.

EL PAÍS reports the unions themselves called it "unorthodox" because it responded to no specific legislation or single government body — instead, it grew out of public outrage over the eviction of Maricarmen, an 87-year-old Madrid woman who died after being removed from her home, and out of protests organized by the Tenants' Union, which is not a labor union.

The unions say the strike caps months of labor unrest, with workdays lost to strikes tripling compared with last year.

Participation was high in strategic sectors but uneven across the economy.

CC OO and UGT reported stoppages of 90% in the automotive and port sectors, 85% in the meat industry, 82% in waste collection and 75% in the energy sector, and Spain's Union of Professionals and Self-Employed Workers said 40% of its self-employed members joined, according to AP.

CC OO chief Unai Sordo said the strike "exceeded the labor unions' expectations."

Business owners' groups called it flat, and the Madrid regional government — run by the conservative Popular Party — called it a "complete and authentic failure," saying just 9% of public sector employees in the region took part.

EL PAÍS notes a 40dB. survey found 23% of employed respondents planned to strike and 36.3% said they would not.

The underlying grievance is Spain's rental market. The Guardian reports average rents have risen about 80% within a decade while home prices climbed 63%, with properties increasingly used as tourist lets and speculative assets.

CC OO's Unai Sordo told Cadena Ser that housing costs climbing by as much as 12% annually have fractured the country and that no collective bargaining can keep pace.

The unions blame wages rising more slowly than prices on the CEOE employers' confederation's refusal to sign a national collective bargaining agreement, per EL PAÍS.

Tenants' unions demand a crackdown on real estate speculation, elimination of tourist apartments and automatic lease renewals, while unions want more government intervention in the housing market and a new minimum wage agreement.

The strike lands 18 days before the November 29 general election. Sánchez called the snap vote after right-wing parties in Parliament rejected emergency housing decrees; his government will retry ratifying reduced versions in an interim Parliament on Thursday, ABC News reports.

Analyst Oriol Bartomeus told AP that the Socialists need the strike to succeed without violence so the campaign swings back to housing, while the Popular Party and Vox want it to flop so they can promise order.

The right, including Madrid leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has dismissed the strike as an electoral ploy by unions aiding Sánchez. EL PAÍS notes sector unions like CSIF and Sepla also rejected the call, and the unions expect backing concentrated in heavily unionized sectors and housing-hit regions.

The Tenants' Union says November 11 opens "a new cycle of struggle" aimed at winning the right to housing, per EL PAÍS.

Whatever the vote on December's policy agenda, Wednesday's stoppage demonstrated that housing — not wage bargaining alone — can mobilize workers at national scale, with CC OO counting roughly 4,500 works councils signed on, including at employers like Mercadona, Inditex, Santander and Telefónica.

Attention now shifts to Thursday's parliamentary vote on the housing decrees and to whether the movement sustains pressure on whoever forms the next government after the November 29 election.