Minister in talks over Airbus jobs
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Your support makes all the difference.Alistair Darling, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, and Louis Gallois, chief executive of Airbus, will meet tomorrow for talks over the job security of the company's 13,000 UK workers.
The meeting, to be held in Broughton, North Wales, where the wings of all Airbus planes are assembled, is the second in recent months between the two and will also see the announcement of a £30m aerospace research and development agreement between the government and the company.
The deal will be seen as a conciliatory message. It comes amid fears for the future of Airbus's British workforce that arose after BAE Systems sold its 20 per cent stake in the troubled aerospace giant in October. Another 135,000 workers at suppliers and sub-contractors in the UK also rely on Airbus and EADS, its parent company.
Mr Gallois has said that Airbus will outsource 50 per cent of the work on its new aeroplane, the A350 XWB - a project that will cost $15bn. "Airbus is in the midst of a desperate effort to slash costs, and the exit of BAE means that there is much less incentive to provide work to Britain," said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst at US research firm Teal Group. "This kind of deal is exactly what is needed to keep the UK industry from being marginalised." Rhodri Morgan, first secretary of the Welsh Assembly, will also attendtomorrow's meeting.
Airbus has sought to assuage fears of massive UK job losses by pointing out that the expertise in the design and assembly of wings is well-ensconced in Britain and not easily found elsewhere.
The company wants to move more of its production to America, in part to offset currency risk. Nearly all of its sales are done in dollars, but most of its production is carried out in Europe, where the euro's surging value against the US currency has hurt the company's performance.
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