STRIKE
Staff at aircraft manufacturer Airbus in Spain will begin an indefinite strike on Monday over demands for higher wages in response to soaring inflation, unions said Thursday.
Published: 27 October 2022 17:21 CEST
Airbus workers in Spain have gone on strike previously. (Photo by PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU / AFP)
“The protest will start on October 31 and will end as soon as management is prepared to guarantee that workers do not lose purchasing power,” the three unions CCOO, UGT-FICA and ATP-SAe said in a statement.
They demanded a “fair salary increase” that recognises workers’ efforts in recent years and recalled that the European aircraft maker posted a record profit in 2021.
The strike announcement comes after Airbus on Monday announced a one-off payment of €1,500 for all employees in UK, France, Germany and Spain.
At the end of last year, Airbus employed over 126,000 people worldwide, including 12,000 in Spain at eight sites in the regions of Andalusia, Castilla La Mancha and Madrid.
Like other countries across Europe, Spain has been struggling with soaring inflation as a result of the fallout from the war in Ukraine and the reopening of the economy after pandemic-related lockdowns.
The country’s inflation rate stood at 8.9 percent in September, easing from 10.5 percent in August as energy prices fell.