Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Slimmer, Better Airbus?

The other shoe finally is allowed to drop:

Troubled planemaker Airbus has announced it is to cut 10,000 jobs across Europe over the next four years.

France will be worst hit with 4,300 job losses. Germany will see 3,700 jobs go while the UK and
Spain will see 1,600 and 400 jobs cut respectively.

....Union officials, who were informed of the proposals earlier on Wednesday, expressed anger at the scale of the cuts.

"We totally oppose the closure of any site and we won't accept any firings," said European Metalworkers Federation head Peter Scherrer.

French workers earlier downed tools in protest at the firm's plans to review the future of two of its sites.

....German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she regretted the job losses but said the proposals ensured "a balanced distribution of risks and opportunities" across different sites.

In France, presidential candidate Segolene Royal said she would seek to freeze the job cuts if elected, but rival Nicolas Sarkozy said politicians should stay out of the company's affairs.

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