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By 2009, the global financial crisis created high unemployment rates
throughout Spain. For many homeowners who borrowed money, the inability
to pay their mortgages meant that they risked eviction while continuing
to pay back their loans, creating the combination of homelessness and
growing debt. Social movements of recent years had worked to secure
housing and employment for all citizens in the turbulent times, such as
the “V de Vivienda” (“H for Housing”) campaign. Out of that particular
campaign grew “Platforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca” (“Mortgage

In 1913, sixteen to eighteen percent of all women over fourteen in and around Barcelona worked in textile factories and related industries. Spinning and weaving workshops usually employed fewer than 40 women and these women worked eleven to twelve hour days. In contrast, male workers usually worked only ten-hour days. Male wages varied between 3 and 3.75 pesetas while female wages were between 1.75 and 2.50 pesetas, with few women earning over 2. Some women worked from the home, manufacturing corsets, paper boxes, shoes, and garments for employers who provided them with piecework.

The Asturian strikes that occurred in the summer of 1963 were the second major challenge to the Franco dictatorship over the span of one year. The first challenge had occurred in the spring of 1962 (see “Spanish coal miners challenge Franco dictatorship, 1962”). As with the strikes in 1962, the 1963 strikes began in the privately owned mines of Asturias during the last week of July 1963. In total, the miners’ executed their strike for 60 days, finally stopping the strike at the end of September. By the end about 40,000 to 50,000 workers had participated in the campaign.