The employees of Airbus Spain have held a vote today at all plants in Spain to decide whether to accept the proposal to postpone the indefinite strike for one week while negotiations progressed. Ultimately, the morning shift employees rejected the initiative on the table. The assembly in Cádiz is postponed to September 1, so the majority decision adopted in the other centers will be followed. Although the afternoon shift employees still have to vote, whose assemblies will start at 18:00 in Getafe, San Pablo, and Tablada; at 18:35 in Illescas; and at 17:00 in Albacete, according to Efe.
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The refusal comes after last Friday, August 21, there was a rapprochement between the positions of the unions and company management in a meeting attended by both the strike organizers (UGT, CGT, and ÚTIL) and the non-organizers (CCOO, SIPA, and ATP) and the company management, represented by Carmen Maja-Rex, Chief HR Officer worldwide for Airbus Helicopters, Airbus Defence & Space, Airbus Operations, and EADS-CASA Space.
In that meeting, the company committed to withdrawing the appeal it had filed before the Supreme Court after the Justice ruled in favor of the unions regarding salary supplements for medical leave, since the company had conditioned the delivery of these to absenteeism rates. Additionally, Airbus promised to return the deducted amounts to the workers in the first possible payroll. However, the withdrawal of the appeal depended on the strike not continuing, so for now, it will not happen, although the company does not withdraw the proposal to continue negotiating.
Airbus also made commitments regarding teleworking (two days a week) and linking salary to the CPI, to which an additional percentage would be added aimed at recovering the purchasing power lost over recent years. The company was open to negotiating in the coming weeks on other topics such as employee vacations, the cafeteria, collective transport and routes, flexible working hours, job security for the Bromo project, the Cádiz agreements to regulate workload, and clarity in job catalogs.
All this has been insufficient: “The workers are no longer willing to give votes of confidence,” explains to EL MUNDO one of the organizing unions, CGT. The day after Airbus management and the unions that called the first strike (SIPA, CCOO, and ATP) signed an agreement to lift it on July 23, the workforce rejected it in a referendum.
For this reason, and facing the new paralysis, on July 30 the company turned to the Interconfederal Mediation and Arbitration Service (SIMA) to save the agreement reached, as well as to the law firm Baker McKenzie for its representation. It was the mediators who proposed to the three union organizations the postponement of the indefinite strike that was rejected today, so the stoppages will begin tomorrow, August 25, lasting 24 hours a day and indefinitely.
