The three main Airbus unions are organizing the first demonstration since the announcement of 15,000 job cuts, including 3,600 in Toulouse.
Pressure is mounting in negotiations at Airbus. A week after announcing a plan for 15,000 job cuts, including 3,600 in Toulouse, the unions are showing muscle. The first of them, Force Ouvrière, is today partnering with the CFE CGC and the CFTC to organize the first employee demonstration. Nearly 8,000 Airbusiens will march to the management headquarters in Blagnac from 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday. They will leave from the Saint-Martin-du-Touch industrial site in Toulouse, where the A320 is notably assembled.
The procession, which promises to be dense and full, will take the area around runway 14R- 32L at Toulouse-Blagnac airport (runway 2, the closest to the Airbus factories). Since July 1, a first section of work has also resulted in the partial closure of this track. The procession will then go to the other side of the runways, that is to say the airport side. The goal is to join the “B 80”, in other words the world headquarters of Airbus where are located the big bosses of divisions of the aircraft manufacturer as well as the executive president, Guillaume Faury. This Campus, which houses nearly 9,000 employees with its annexes, directly overlooks the airport runways.
Bypassing the airport runways
The employees’ march, which will last around three-quarters of an hour, will bypass the airport runways, “with no impact on airport operations,” said a source familiar with the matter. This atypical and spectacular route was negotiated and anticipated with the State services and the Haute-Garonne prefecture. The reduced air traffic, due to the health crisis (40 flights per day against 300 usually), and the securing of the route, will allow an unfolding without impact on passenger flights. This event, which remains within the airport perimeter, will not affect traffic around Airbus. “We want to send management a message of total mobilization of all employees when we negotiate the terms of the restructuring plan” said Jean-François Knepper, the central FO union representative at Airbus.
Discussions between social partners and management started on Monday and have four months to complete (read box). The unions want at all costs to lower the quantum of departures, still set at 5,138 for France, including 70% for Toulouse sites, or 3,600 positions distributed between factories and headquarters.
Upon arrival at Airbus headquarters, a delegation of employee representatives must be received by members of the executive committee, including Thierry Baril, the group’s human resources director.
Tomorrow Thursday, another demonstration, this time organized by the CGT of Haute-Garonne, will take place between the Dewoitine roundabout, near the Airbus headquarters in Blagnac, with a procession that will march to the entrance of the airport.
Access to the terminal, both trams and cars, will therefore be very severely disrupted from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m., because the demonstrators wish to organize a barbecue on site.
Four months of negotiations have started
Since Monday, Airbus union-management meetings have started on the definition of the method agreement, that is to say the way in which the negotiations for the job protection plan (PSE) will take place. In addition to the calendar to come, two consulting firms will be designated to support, a committee made up of union representatives from the “Airplanes” perimeter has been decided to conduct negotiations.
In addition, the management has also accepted an extension of union resources, which notably increase the time of delegation of elected officials, who will be mobilized for several weeks by the discussions. It is really only from 16 and 17 July that the social partners will “get into the hard stuff”, in particular by defining the terms of voluntary departures for employees wishing to leave Airbus in order to create their own activity. Then follow the negotiations on the PES and long-term partial unemployment.
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