Thousands of workers protest at the eight Spanish Airbus plants against the announcement of 600 layoffs

The eight Airbus factories in Spain have dawned on Friday with protests at their doors following the announcement of the European aeronautical constructor that it will carry out more than 600 layoffs in Spain. In Getafe, Madrid, hundreds of employees gathered at ten o'clock in the morning with flags of trade union associations next to the roundabout of the John Lennon Promenade, welcoming the support beeps of the cars that circulated around. They were not alone. Employees of the Canadian Héroux and Iveco accompanied them. A solidarity poster from John Deere, Getafe's second largest company - behind Airbus - concealed the factory welcome sign. "There is no one left over here," another CGT banner made clear, in response to the ERE announced last Wednesday.

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The European consortium justifies this labor cut due to the lack of orders for military aircraft in the last three years, in particular, the A400M transport aircraft, which is assembled at the factory in Seville, Its exports have been minimized, above all, after the veto imposed by Germany, one of the participating countries of the aeronautical consortium, to sell it to Saudi Arabia. The strong competition of the new satellite launcher manufacturers and the consequences of the paralysis of the Boeing 737 MAX, from which Airbus manufactures parts such as the engine lining and the vertical helm, has also contributed. However, the protesters' proclamations and the cries of protest on Friday made it clear that the workforce of more than 12,000 Airbus employees in Spain has not accepted these arguments.

"It may be that there are fewer orders, but we have a guaranteed portfolio of orders for the next few years," criticizes David Gallego, member of the company committee of Airbus Operations. In his 15 years of experience in Airbus, he has lived several cuts. For him the situation is not new: "Every two years they make an adjustment of this type. In 2018 we already had one and in 2016 another, although never of this magnitude. The company has been relocating factories for years and increasing subcontracting. Everything to achieve more benefits based on precarious employment. " Next to him is Juan Carlos Páez, a neighbor of Getafe and a "lifelong" company worker. Like many others, he has attended the demonstration with his family. "It cannot be that Airbus has broken record profits in the civil sector and distributed the largest dividend in its history and now announces layoffs," criticizes Páez at the sight of his wife and son. This same argument was repeated again and again among workers and union leaders.

A few meters from the protesters, union spokesmen have announced to the media the preparation of a protest calendar. "This is only the first action. We do not rule out a strike in all the companies in the sector. We are going to prepare a great mobilization for March that will probably end in a demonstration in Madrid. We are convening sectoral assemblies in all our ramifications. We want the Government to feel to negotiate ", explained Francisco Javier San José, chairman of the Committee of Interemployed of CC OO, who says that, so far, they have not received any response from the company.

In addition, San José has described the announcement of the dismissals as a "blackmail" of Airbus to the Government. "This is a revenge for having given the millionaire contract of the [future European fighter plane] FCAS to Indra instead of them," said the unionist, who says there are other alternatives to layoffs to compensate for the drop in orders in the Defense section.

The Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, said on Friday that "the Government as a whole" is working before the dismissals announced by Airbus in Spain, and that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, is "at the head" of these steps. "It is one of the issues that occupied us yesterday and the president at the head is working on this," said Diaz in Congress, in statements collected by Europa Press.

Although from CC OO they have assured that it is still "soon" to quantify the number of people affected by the job cuts in each Spanish plant, the activity in the Defense and Space division (the one affected by the adjustment and where most of the staff) is concentrated in the factories of Getafe, the two in Seville (San Pablo and Tablada) and the one in Puerto de Santa María, in Cádiz. In the latter, uncertainty is also the feeling of majority among the hundreds of workers that Airbus has in the provinces of Andalusia.

This morning the Andalusian workers have also starred half-hour partial stoppages against the Airbus adjustment. “Let's see what they tell us on March 3, but we reject the company's adjustment plan. The commercial division has had record numbers, with a redistribution of the workload the problem of demand in the military branch could be alleviated, ”says Juan Osuna, general secretary of UGT of the Tablada plant at the entrance door of the factory, in which the 500 employees of the day shift have been concentrated.

Of the 630 workers affected in Spain, 210 departures are proposed in Seville and 40 in Cádiz, according to data estimated by UGT and CC OO. The current templates of the Airbus Defense and Space division in Andalusia are distributed among 1,780 workers in San Pablo, 823 in Tablada and 456 in the Cadiz CBC. Unions warn of excessive dependence on military production. In the Seville-Cádiz axis, only the Puerto Real plant, linked to civil Airbus programs, can avoid the crisis, in others the A400M and C295 are assembled. “We ask for diversification. It cannot be that workload is lacking here and in other plants where commercial airplanes are manufactured, they are not making deliveries on time because or they supply ”, complains Ricardo Aguilar, general secretary of CC OO in Tablada.

A few weeks ago the manufacture of the A320 assembly line, a civil model, was requested at the San Pablo plant. “Everything is in Toulouse and there they have work overload. They are saturated, but here they plan cuts, ”says Osuna. Currently, in the factories dedicated to the military field, eight C295 airplanes are being made per year and nine A400M. "Two years ago, about twenty of each came out," says Aguilar.

The crisis of the company was already felt in 2018, when the fall in the production and deliveries of the A400M military aircraft and the low commercial performance of the C295, also manufactured in Andalusia, caused the turnover to fall in 2018, by 3, 1%, for the first time since 2011. The creation of employment, however, remained on the rise, but the adjustment plan announced by Airbus, can be a dangerous change of trend since, as the unions warn, for each job that it is lost in the matrix, four are destroyed in the auxiliary industry. "Here the concern is not only for Airbus, but for the effects on the supply chain," Manuel Ponce, deputy secretary of Industry of UGT, explains to this newspaper.