Company News: French Airbus workers strike over planned job cuts

Thousands of striking Airbus workers demonstrated Tuesday in Toulouse, the European aircraft maker’s headquarters, to protest plans to cut 10,000 jobs and spin off or close six European plants.

Some 15,000 workers took part in the demonstrations, trade unions said. Police in the southern French city estimated there were 12,000 protesters.

“We don’t want to become Airbus odd-jobs men, we want to acquire new skills,” said Jean-Francois Knepper, an official with Force Ouvriere, the strongest Airbus labor union in France.

Besides the job cuts — of which 4,300 would be made in France — Airbus plans to sell or close three plants and find industrial partners to take over and upgrade three more facilities producing fuselage and wing parts. Two of the six affected sites are in France, three in Germany and one in Britain.

In a sign that the industrial action could be gathering pace, the Toulouse demonstration was joined by anti-globalization leader Jose Bove and other figures from the broader political left, as well as the top national officials of the five union federations behind the strike. Smaller protests took place at Airbus facilities in Saint-Nazaire and Nantes, western France.

The European Metalworkers’ Federation, a Brussels-based trade union organization, called for another day of strikes and protests by Airbus workers across Europe on March 16.

The demonstrations have thrust the Airbus restructuring into France’s presidential election campaign, with candidates making competing promises of government intervention to bolster the troubled aircraft maker.

“Two of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s most vocal critics — the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which backs WakeUpWalmart.com, and Wal-Mart Watch — are putting pressure on the world’s largest retailer to disclose if it has monitored its workers’ communications.

The moves come amid a federal investigation after Wal-Mart said a systems technician monitored text messages and phone calls of other employees and non-employees, including a New York Times reporter. In a conference call with reporters Monday afternoon, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams said the technician “acted alone” and used his own personal equipment to intercept text and pager messages.

Wal-Mart said Monday it had fired the technician and his immediate supervisor.