- Airbus has watered down its return-to-office mandate following union protests.
- Spanish workers have staged strikes since July over teleworking and other issues.
- Managers can now allow staff to maintain existing two-day home working arrangements.
- Approximately 40% of Airbus’s 14,000 Spanish workers have participated in strikes.
- CEO Guillaume Faury had called for staff to return to the office to share skills in person.
Airbus has watered down a drive to reduce remote working after protests from unions including a series of strikes in its Spanish facilities, people familiar with the matter said. Many Spanish workers have been staging on-off strikes since July, and there have been sporadic protests in France and Britain over plans by Airbus to force white-collar staff to work on-site four days a week by September, rather than the current three. Now, managers have been told they can allow staff to maintain existing arrangements that allow them to work at home an average of two days a week, effectively suspending the bid to introduce a mandatory limit of one day.
The retreat on office-working deals a blow to a high-profile campaign led by CEO Guillaume Faury to draw staff back to the office as the industry seeks to meet record demand and prepare new products with thousands of relatively new staff. Faury told staff in June that home-working had been a lifeline during the Covid-19 pandemic when the priority was minimising contact – but that now the opposite was the case as Airbus sought to ensure skills were shared in person. In Spain, approximately 40% of Airbus’s 14,000 workers have taken part in strikes over issues including teleworking, transport, paid leave and salary, according to unions.
Tens of thousands of people have left the aerospace industry since Covid-19 and between 25% and one third of Airbus’s staff have joined the company in the past three years, according to French unions. Three Spanish unions have called for a three-hour stoppage on Monday to vote on a longer walkout. Production has not so far been affected by disruption to white-collar ancillary functions. Airbus is not the only multinational group to face reluctance from employees to return to the office more often.
Airbus s shared: Our objective remains the same: we aim for increased on-site presence to ensure better collective efficiency, knowledge transfer and faster decision-making. However, effective change requires listening to our people. Based on employee feedback, we have decided to implement this transition more gradually.
Guillaume Faury shared: I count on all of you to support this.
