The protest action of several thousand Airbus employees was a response to plans to reduce 5 thousand jobs across France, including 3.5 thousand in Toulouse, announced by the aircraft manufacturer, the French newspaper Le Figaro reported July 8.
At the call of the three major unions, FO, CFE-CGC and CFTC, several thousand Airbus employees crossed the airport runways to meet the company’s management. The action was organized after receiving permission from the prefecture to minimize air traffic disruption, said AFP Floran Veleci, Airbus CFTC central union delegate.
“We want to send a strong message, but not to declare war”, – as negotiations have begun between the management and the unions, for which the red line is “zero firing”, an option that was not excluded by the leadership of the group.
The union trio identified early retirement, partial long-term activities and the installation of training equipment among the requirements, with plans to complete the plans by summer 2021.
According to Veleča, “we can go further” than the figure of 1,500 positions that can be saved in France if the state will contribute to this, recalling the figure mentioned last week in an interview with Airbus boss Guillaume Fori, German weekly Der Spiegel.
Similar protests are planned in Saint-Nazaire and Nantes, where Airbus subsidiary Stelia Aerospace has planned to reduce more than a thousand jobs. Another event, this time at the call of the CGT union, is scheduled for July 9 between Airbus headquarters and the airport as part of the Day of Action in support of the aviation industry, which employs 90,000 people in the former Midi-Pyrenees region.
Recall that the last mass mobilization of Airbus employees in Toulouse, where 25 thousand people worked, goes back to 2010, when a strike was launched after the announcement of participation awards, which were considered negligible and which were eventually overestimated upwards.