For several weeks, various Airbus facilities in Spain have been affected by an ongoing, renewable strike.
FO expresses its full support for the Spanish employees and trade unions in their efforts to defend their purchasing power, working conditions, and professional futures.
This dispute—which is dragging on and marked by numerous twists and turns as well as Management blunders—reflects a deep-seated frustration that is entirely understandable when one looks at the evolution of labor rights at Airbus in Spain.
Without a shadow of a doubt, the same policies would have triggered the same reactions in France.
What is Management doing in Spain?
Like our Spanish counterparts, we, at FO, would never have accepted wage policies that led to a lasting loss of purchasing power.
In France, wage negotiations conducted in recent years have succeeded in protecting employees against inflation. These results were achieved through the balance of power, negotiation, and the signing of agreements. In Spain, wage policies failed to provide this same protection, allowing a loss of purchasing power and a deep sense of injustice to gradually take hold.
Nor would we have accepted a price hike of over 40% for meals, or the implementation of the Bradford system for sick leave. This mechanism, which particularly penalizes repeated short-term absences, reduces sometimes complex medical situations to a simple mathematical indicator.
Many other decisions taken in recent years help explain the reaction of Spanish workers and their trade unions. They account for why the conflict has reached such a high level of tension.
Throughout the dispute, threats regarding jobs and the future allocation of activities and workload were also used in a barely veiled manner.
In an already tense climate, it would be hard to imagine a better way to add fuel to the fire.
Indeed, this threat is likely to further strengthen the already close ties between European trade unions. The level of social rights cannot become the criterion for allocating workloads across countries.
Accepting such a logic would amount to institutionalizing social dumping within Airbus itself.
It is now up to Management to make decisions and clearly communicate its intentions.
When conflict becomes an instrument
Today, this conflict is widely romanticized by some and amplified by outside commentators who exploit inaccuracies to serve other agendas. Its instrumentalization does not always stem from solidarity; it also reflects a desire to co-opt the conflict and impose a single interpretation of it.
Yet, beyond the posturing and slogans, the situation is taking a toll on employees and union representatives in Spain. Once again, we are witnessing the emergence of completely unacceptable violence.
Spanish employees and their unions have made different choices. These differences are legitimate. They are part of the internal union debate, the autonomy of each organization, the normal exercise of a mandate, and the free exercise of the right to strike.
Signing an agreement and deciding to continue the mobilization are both union choices that can be debated, opposed, or challenged. Nothing can justify aggression, intimidation, or personal or physical threats.
When a confrontation shifts from the realm of ideas to targeting individuals, it is not the balance of power that advances, but social democracy itself that regresses.
Unfortunately, we are witnessing this phenomenon in France and within Airbus as well.
And what are we to make of those who seize upon this conflict to demand a halt to Airbus’s investments in its Defense division?
Such a position threatens more than just an industrial activity; it amounts to calling for the potential destruction of several thousand jobs across Airbus, and particularly in Spain.
Dogmatism sets in when any dissent is condemned and ideology takes precedence over the future of the workforce.
Industrial peace long prevailed in Spain, as it did in the other European countries where Airbus operates. It was built on specific methods, decisions, and a consistent ability to seek compromises so as not to jeopardize anything.
It might be time for everyone to remember that.
