FRANKFURT/MUNICH (Reuters) – Members of Germany’s powerful IG Metall labor union will walk off the job at EADS (EAD.PA ) sites next week to protest against a sweeping restructuring at the European aeronautics group that they fear will lead to thousands of job cuts.
Among others, workers at EADS in Hamburg, Bremen and the southern German town of Manching – where defense unit Cassidian assembles and tests Eurofighter jets – will down tools during the day in coordinated events on November 28, it said.
EADS, in which France and Germany each hold 12 percent of shares, said in July it will combine its defense and space units in a bid to boost profits, in addition to taking the name of its flagship brand Airbus.
German news agency DPA had on Wednesday cited sources as saying EADS was planning to cut up to 20 percent of the roughly 40,000-strong workforce at Airbus Defence & Space. EADS declined to comment on that figure.
“We clearly warn management not to make unilateral moves or go back on previously made promises,” Ruediger Luetjen, head of the company’s European works council and an IG Metall representative, said on Thursday. It was not immediately clear what promises he was referring to.
EADS has also said it may sell off units that are small and easily segregated from the rest.
Chief Executive Tom Enders said last month the restructuring would require “hard measures” as job and cost cuts could not be avoided.
EADS is due to give further details on the restructuring program, which will run through to next July, on December 9.
“We demand clear communication instead of being left waiting for answers,” IG Metall’s Luetjen said. “It’s up to management to decide whether it wants to be constructive or confrontational with us in the planned restructuring.”
An EADS spokesman in Germany declined to comment.
(Reporting by Maria Sheahan and Jens Hack- Editing by Louise Ireland)
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