Comment Airbus is relocating positions from Toulouse to Portugal
This is a new cut in jobs in the aeronautical sector in Toulouse. According to the count of a union source, Airbus is preparing to transfer 311 positions to Portugal. A dozen relate to the United Kingdom, 71 to Spain, 106 to Germany and 122 to France, all of which are currently based in Toulouse, the vast majority within Airbus SAS and a tiny part within Airbus Operations.
The project would have been presented to the teams at the end of 2021, before being voted on by the staff representative bodies in the central social and economic committee (CSE-C) at the beginning of 2022. CFTC voted for this reorganization and that Force Ouvrière abstained, this is not the case of the CGT or the CFDT who showed themselves presented to the project.
“Aeronautics and space are the most dynamic and competitive sectors in the world, and Airbus must constantly improve its efficiency to preserve its leading position in the market”, explains the management of Airbus, requested by La Tribune.
These relocations of positions concern a particular profile of employees.
No forced mobility
This reorganization, revealed by Mediacities and The gallery is able to confirm, will mainly concern the support functions of the European aircraft manufacturer. Of the 122 Toulouse positions affected by this relocation, 96 have a link with finance and 26 with HR functions.
“The jobs concerned are generally accounting, payroll management or bonus management professions”, describes Marc Baillion, CFDT union representative at Airbus SAS “There are also functions in communication and IT that are impacted”, adds Maxime Léonard, his counterpart at the CGT.
The unions regret that it is once again these support and cross-cutting functions that are supported by cuts in their workforce, after the liabilities of the Odyssey (2020) and Gemini (2016) social plans which had heavily involved even these trades. “Within the teams, there is a form of weariness or even a feeling of betrayal sometimes faced with the accumulation of reorganizations“, shares Maxime Léonard.
To materialize, the transfers of positions from Toulouse to Portugal and more particularly Lisbon should take two to three years in their entirety, to be completed no later than 2025. According to the unions, the management of Airbus assured them that ‘there would be no forced mobility and this same management would have promised retraining to employees.
“We guarantee a future at Airbus to the people concerned, but we tell them that they must on the other hand change jobs. There have been, for example, proposals for retraining as quality controller on the future assembly line of the A321 in Toulouse (…) It is humanly unacceptable”, reacts Mark Billion.
Near The gallerythe management of the European aircraft manufacturer would like to emphasize that it”did not make job cuts“and it confirms its desire to redeploy in its services the human forces financed by this strategic decision.”Employees in positions related to reduced activities in Portugal will be redeployed to other Airbus functions or departments. The transfer of activity is planned from 2023. Internal redeployments will ensure the transition and development of employees. Airbus plans to support them in assessing their individual skills and through training to facilitate these internal redeployments. These measures are part of detailed plans currently being discussed with the social partners.“, details the industrial group.
Economic reasons behind this choice?
But why send 311 posts, currently based in France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom to Portugal?
“These support services were housed in different sites. It appeared necessary to create a new specialized Global Business Service for Airbus. This center of expertise makes it possible to pool transactional activities with a pool of specialists who require Airbus functions, such as certain HR administrative services, accounting activities, or reporting. of a business sector dedicated to ‘global business services’, favorable working environment, easy to access, attractive, stable and compatible with the GDPR”, justifies the European aircraft manufacturer.
To be complete, you should know that Airbus opened a little over a year ago in the southern European country this subsidiary called Airbus Global Business Services (GBS).
“Initially, this new entity was to host only the transverse services of the aircraft manufacturer Bombardier, which Airbus took over a few years ago. These functions were spread all over South America, so the idea was to centralize them in this new subsidiary. From now on, the management wants to extend the experiment to the transverse services of Airbus in Europe, which led to this decision to transfer positions”, the late CFDT union delegate. “The management highlights that there is a certain specialty of Portugal on these functions and that it remains despite everything an investment in Europe with the intention of creating a fifth natco (central/major country for a group, editor’s note) with France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom”, complete son colleague of the CGT.
But for the unions, this relocation would above all have economic motivations in order to reduce costs. Compared to the four countries that will see positions transferred to Portugal, the cost of labor is much higher than in the latter where the minimum wage is set at 822.5 euros gross monthly.
“Airbus is a company that has been living in the short-term economically for a few years. For us, it’s only a reduction in costs through low-cost jobs”, judges Maxim Leonard.
Eventually, the GBS subsidiary of Airbus in Portugal should have 800 employees according to the unions. A part will be allocated by internalization of positions by repatriating missions previously carried out with subcontractors in Canada and the United States, without forgetting the 311 positions relocated to Lisbon, it will be necessary to add job creations on site.