Airbus facing new showdown over planned job cuts

Airbus faced a bruising battle today in presenting a plan meant to turn the European planemaker around after a crushing year.

The restructuring plan is expected to include massive job losses and plant sales certain to enrage employees across Europe.

Airbus parent EADS unanimously approved the “Power8” restructuring plan on Monday, ending a week-long dispute between French and German shareholders. Yesterday, the European aircraft maker’s main French labour union called the cutbacks “a declaration of war,” workers staged walkouts and threatened wider strikes.

Airbus management is to present the plan to staff representatives before releasing it publicly this afternoon at its headquarters in Toulouse, southern France.

The plan will lead to about 10,000 job losses among Airbus staff and subcontractors, a person close to the company said. Airbus currently employs about 56,000 workers.

About 4,300 of the job cuts will be made in France, 3,900 in Germany, 1,000-1,500 in Britain and 500 in Spain, said the source.

The French government’s Minister for Labour and Youth Gerard Larcher said the restructuring plan was “indispensable”.

Speaking on Europe-1 radio, Mr Larcher reiterated the French government’s trust in Airbus Chief Executive Louis Gallois to handle the rehaul.

Airbus will seek buyers for its Meaulte and Saint-Nazaire-Ville production sites in France, Germany’s Nordenham and Varel plants and the Filton site in Britain, the source said. The company is seeking investors to run the sites as subcontractors on Airbus jet programmes but may be forced to close the Saint-Nazaire plant, which employs 900 workers.

Staff at the Meaulte facility, which makes nose cones for Airbus airliners of all sizes, staged a stoppage yesterday to protest against the anticipated cuts. Almost all the plant’s 1,700 workers took part in the spontaneous strike, Airbus confirmed.

“That was a warning strike,” said Peter Scherrer, head of the European Metalworkers’ Federation in Brussels – where officials from Airbus unions in France, Germany, Britain and Spain met yesterday and warned of bigger strikes.