Feijóo asks the unions to call off the general strike: "69 deaths later it is a serious mistake"

MadridA week before the general strike, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has issued a warning to its organizers. "Before it was incomprehensible, 69 deaths later it is a serious mistake," stated the PP leader this Tuesday at an informative breakfast organized by Europa Press. Feijóo has directly asked the unions to call off the protest on November 11 and warned them that, if they maintain it, they will "tie their image to Pedro Sánchez." CCOO and UGT have ignored the call and will maintain the general strike which, for the popular president, after the Toledo train accident, is even more ill-timed. "I am not questioning the constitutional right to strike but the sense of timing," he said. The stoppage was called due to the housing crisis, which has been relegated media-wise to the background by the tragedy on the Madrid-Andalusia high-speed line.

Feijóo has admitted that he has never supported this initiative which employers' associations had also criticized. At the time of the call,the CEOE labeled it "illegal" and "electoral". In the same vein, the popular president has now opined that it is a strike that, apart from being "inopportune" due to the fact that it is on the eve of general elections and just after a shock like the Toledo accident, is, furthermore, called "against the opposition." That is to say, against the right. "If they call it off, the unions will be making the right choice," insisted Feijóo. With his sights already set on a scenario in which the PP reaches the Moncloa, the popular leader has said that he needs "union interlocutors with whom he can sit down to talk." "If they start the legislature with a reputational problem, they will be weaker," he assured.

"No one has said that this strike is called against the opposition," replied the secretary general of CCOO, Unai Sordo, who rejected that the initiative could be delegitimized by the train accident. "One of the reasons for the strike is precisely to demand investment in public services and in the maintenance of the large public infrastructures that our country needs," he argued. The leader of the UGT, Pepe Álvarez, has considered Feijóo's justification for demanding they call off the 11-N strike "somewhat insulting."

In parallel to the general strike, next week there will be protests in the railway sector. The train drivers' union Semaf has called for a total stoppage on the previous day, Tuesday, November 10, and partial stoppages throughout Thursday, the 12th. "We cannot continue to be used to cover up the lack of management and will," they maintain from Semaf. Other railway unions are also considering joining the sectoral protest.

Call for a "clear mandate"

On the other hand, Feijóo has asked citizens to give him a "clear mandate" on November 29th so he can drive a "national reconstruction" from the Spanish government presidency. While he did not mention Vox, in practice the popular leader is referring to the aspiration of having the largest possible popular "parliamentary group" when polls forecast particularly pronounced growth for the far-right. However, the PP, aware that it will need to join forces with Santiago Abascal's party, simultaneously asks for the vote for Vox in the three provinces where it is not running for the Senate due to the pact with the far-right. "Let the citizens make the vote for change useful," defended the PP's number two, Miguel Tellado, on TVE.