"Do not scuttle", claim Airbus employees

• The aeronautics sector has been hit hard by the coronavirus crisis and the drop in air traffic.
• Airbus management has announced the abolition of 5,000 jobs in France, including 3,500 in Toulouse.
• Between 7,000 and 9,000 employees demonstrated on Toulouse Airbus sites for the defense of employment.

They decided to take a niche, under the windows of their management. Between 7,000 and 9,000 Airbus employees demonstrated this Wednesday morning in Toulouse, a few days after the announcement of the abolition of 5,000 jobs in France, including more than 3,500 on the sites of the Pink City.

At the call of the majority unions, FO, CFE-CGC and CFTC, the company's "blue-collar" and "white-collar" workers paraded inside the site to avoid any recovery, but also any overflow.

Thousands of demonstrators at the parade for the defense of jobs at #Airbus at #Toulouse pic.twitter.com/APVjOpVc6R

Audrey, 30, came to support her colleagues. An employee for two years in the company, after having been employed for several years with a subcontractor, she does not hide her "worry". “Today, no one feels protected by the situation. I do not know if this figure of 3,500 is inevitable, what I want is that it is reduced to the maximum and that we avoid dry layoffs ", insists the young woman who ensures the link between production and suppliers. She knows that breakage is likely to be very significant among the latter, entities where her father and brother work.

State aid

“I am not considering anything other than Airbus. I want to believe in a future in Toulouse, if we want it to remain a city where there is employment, aeronautics must be kept afloat ”, continues the employee attached to her company, like many of his colleagues. But all hope that the impact of this temporary crisis will not serve to change the business more deeply.

“We are aware of the difficulties, we do not deny them. We want to prepare well for the recovery, do not scuttle, do not lose our skills. We must relaunch the activity, especially with the green plane. Our wealth is our know-how, our projects and programs. There, we have a structural response to a cyclical crisis. We cannot take advantage of the situation to unravel this structure ”, insists Pierre,“ Airbusien ”for thirty years. He, engineering board, affected by 17% of job cuts.

Christophe, an employee of ATR, the regional aircraft manufacturer of Airbus, also wanted to parade with his colleagues. He does not understand "that with all the money that the state has paid", there are job cuts. “We have the financial means to hold out. For years the industry has made billions of profits. There, they have an opportunity to make productivity gains ”, adds Olivier Le Penven, CGT union representative, present at the demonstration.

A more tense context than during the Power 8 social plan

Unions that are on the warpath. “The management made brutal announcements to us, we reacted. We are determined to show that we must not cross the red line. There are many worried young workers. And the oldest await strong support measures to avoid forced departures, "argues Florent Veletchy, CFDT central union representative of Airbus.

Announcements that will be made in the heart of the summer, but that are made in a tense economic context. More than at the time of Power 8, the previous major social plan of the company which had led to the abolition of 5,000 internal positions and at least as many with subcontractors.

Our file on Airbus

At the time, employees had left, sometimes creating their business thanks to the aid measures. "But the current economic context is very different, many employees will ask questions", punctuates Françoise Vallin, central union delegate CFE-CGC of Airbus.

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• Plane
• Aeronautics
• Covid 19
• Coronavirus
• Abolition of posts
• Airbus
• Toulouse