MADRID, Spain – UGT and CCOO, their regional organisations, federations and linked foundations received 569 million euros in registered public aid between 2018 and 2025, according to an analysis of the annual lists of large Treasury beneficiaries carried out by THE OBJECTIVE and Gaceta.es. The figure brings together funding from all administrations for the identified beneficiaries, with the two unions preparing a 24-hour general strike over housing and wages to be held on Wednesday 11 November, two days before the start of the election campaign for the 29 November general election.
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The breakdown attributes 318.12 million to UGT organisations and 250.73 million to CCOO organisations, with the latter amount including 2.81 million registered in the name of linked foundations including Pau i Solidaritat and Jesús Pereda. Each organisation appears as an independent beneficiary with its own tax identification number, so the accumulated total does not represent income exclusively of the national leaderships. If only the two state confederations are considered, the amount over the eight years rises to 132.59 million, with 82.22 million for UGT and 50.37 million for CCOO, while the rest corresponds to regional organisations, federations and other included beneficiaries.
In 2025, the state confederation of UGT appears with 13.02 million and that of CCOO with 13.52 million, and when the other identified beneficiaries are included the amounts for that year reach 47.84 million for UGT organisations and 45.66 million for CCOO organisations. The calculation follows the tax identification numbers through the eight annual files to prevent abbreviations and name changes from leaving records out.
The annual evolution shows that 2025 was the year with the highest registered funding for the analysed UGT and CCOO organisations at 93.50 million euros, 22.8 per cent more than in 2024 and 34.1 per cent above 2018, with the increase compared with the first year of the series reaching 23.77 million in nominal terms without discounting inflation. The trajectory was not uniform, with the combined amount falling to 50.25 million in 2020 and rebounding to 83.39 million in 2021.
The Treasury counts equivalent aid, an indicator expressing the value of different public support instruments that does not by itself constitute a certification of effective payments, with the lists bringing together beneficiaries exceeding 100,000 euros per year and covering all administrations, meaning the accumulated total cannot be attributed entirely to the central government.
@theobjective Los sindicatos que convocan la huelga han recibido 569 millones en ayudas desde 2018. En los ocho años transcurridos desde entonces no han impulsado ninguna huelga. Con las elecciones a la vista, sin embargo, UGT y CCOO han convocado un paro general el 11 de noviembre, dos días antes del arranque de la campaña.
♬ sonido original – theobjective
Besides UGT and CCOO, other so-called class unions have joined the mobilisations, with CGT expressing its willingness to promote a 24-hour general strike over wages and housing while co.bas has published a call to build that mobilisation, and Solidaridad Obrera taking part in the preparatory meetings. In parallel, ELA has announced a general strike in the Basque and Navarrese sphere, CIG has decided to call one in Galicia, and LAB is working to agree a call in Euskadi and Navarra, with their announcements attesting to support for this mobilisation tool but not allowing all the territorial initiatives to be presented as a single call with identical conditions. The identified records for CIG add up to 7.75 million, those for ELA to 5.62 million, LAB to 3.41 million and CGT to 2.40 million between 2018 and 2025, with their incorporation raising the total of the six unions and analysed organisations to 588.02 million.
UGT and CCOO direct their demands at the administrations with housing powers and at business organisations, from which they demand wages sufficient to access housing. María Jesús Montero has interpreted that the protest is called against the opposition for bringing down the housing decrees, a reading that corresponds to the PSOE and cannot be attributed to the unions as a whole.
The housing crisis precedes the parliamentary conflict, with the Bank of Spain documenting rent increases since 2015, especially intense in large urban areas, and difficulties concentrated among young people and lower-income households. Inflation added to that pressure in 2022, when the national average annual index rose 8.4 per cent, while contributions have also grown, with the intergenerational equity mechanism rising from 0.6 per cent in 2023 to 0.9 per cent in 2026, shared between company and worker.
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The strike revives a tool that UGT and CCOO had not used jointly for a 24-hour state general strike over socio-economic demands since November 2012, a delimitation that does not exclude the feminist, sectoral and territorial strikes of the period. Besides the aid, there is accumulated union patrimony in the form of state-owned properties ceded free of charge in use to unions and business organisations for their operation, a cession that does not hand over ownership of the buildings and whose value has not been added to the calculated amounts.
