Airbus proposals fly into a storm as workers walk out.

Airbus announced its long-awaited restructuring proposals yesterday, and French and German workers responded swiftly by staging a walkout.

The company plans to cut 10,000 jobs, outsource three factories and sell or close a further three. Despite a record order book worth €200 billion (£135 billion), the European aircraft manufacturer has been struggling with the weak dollar and the high costs of its inefficient structure.

Louis Gallois, the chief executive of Airbus, set out yesterday how he intended to simplify the company’s pan-European operations to free money and engineering talent to build the company’s next aircraft, the €10 billion A350. The restructuring proposals, called Power 8, are highly controversial and politicians across the Continent are wading into the debate.

Mr Gallois attacked the political interference and the bickering between governments over the company’s future, calling the situation a “poison”.

Trade unions were unhappy with the restructuring and have threatened industrial action. German and French workers walked off the job yesterday in protest at the redundancies.

Power 8 calls for Airbus to outsource more work to suppliers. The company takes only about 25 per cent of its components from third parties, compared with 80 per cent for Boeing and 75 per cent for Embraer. The A350 will source about half from third parties, and Airbus has started the process of outsourcing by putting three of its component factories up for sale: Saint-Nazaire, in France, and Varel and Laupheim, in Germany. If no buyer is found, these factories are likely to close. Airbus will seek joint-venture partners for three other factories: Filton, near Bristol, Meaulte, in France, and Nordenham, in Germany.

Mr Gallois said that these factories could become wholly owned by the joint-venture partner. By outsourcing these facilities, he said, Airbus would be able to spread its investment costs and risk.

Airbus was also trimming its 55,000strong workforce, with 3,700 jobs to go in Germany, 3,200 in France, 1,600 in the UK, 400 in Spain and 1,100 in Toulouse, the corporate headquarters. About half of these jobs entail contractors; the other half will be offered early retirement.

Airbus was also attempting to streamline its Europe-wide operations. In future it will assemble one aircraft at one site, rather than the present system of carrying out construction in Hamburg and Toulouse. For example, the A350 will be built in France, but Germany will get the A320 when it is revamped in about eight years.

Airbus will also streamline where the key parts of its aircraft are built, halving the number of core factories – or centres of excellence – to four. Germany will be responsible for the fuselages, Spain the tails, Britain the wings and France the interiors and electrical systems.

Airbus is seeking joint-venture partners to invest in its Filton factory. Filton, near Bristol, is one of three plants that the aircraft manufacturer is outsourcing as part of cost-cutting measures.

As The Times reported last week, four potential partners are understood to have been approached: GKN, Finmeccanica, Saab and Spirit AeroSystems. There had been concerns that Filton would be one of three factories Airbus has decided to sell or close.

Instead, the company will outsource about 50 per cent of operations at Filton, which is where Concorde was built in the 1970s. The joint-venture partner could then be allowed to buy out the facility in the future.

Airbus will retain wing design work at Filton, while its partner will make wing components. The wings themselves will be built at Broughton, North Wales.

I think you can boil it down to precisely that.

Had America not had protectionist tarriffs, the Americans would have bought their manufactured goods from England - the goods were much cheaper from there, and there were very strong ties to England, especially in the agricultural South. The Midwest, too, would have bought its tools at the English price...if they had been allowed to.
And had they done that, the nascent American industrial base would have been cut off at the knees. It would not have grown up to be what it became, precisely BECAUSE the English at the time mass-produced goods more efficiently and cheaply (they had much greater expertise at it).

Likewise, had America enforced English and French patents, there would have been a lot less American "ingenuity" out there. Americans would have been pre-empted in many fields by the pre-existing patents.

That's how competition really works.
Had America then respected the rules that Britain then wanted, America would have been a great agricultural power, but would not have become the world's number one industrial power in 1880. The English would have squeezed the life out of American competition at the onset, and American manufacturing would have died aborning.

Today, the Chinese and Indians are using approximately the same rules on America that America used on the English. And the end result will be the same: America will diminish, relatively, and India and China will be the greatest manufacturing and economic powers in the world by the end of the century. America relative to China will be what England is today relative to America.

That does not have to happen if we take logical steps to protect ourselves against it. But those steps would cut into the bottom line, especially, of the great traders who make great wads of cash arbitraging the "China Price". Those traders are the moneymen who back the "Free Trade" plank of both political parties in America. Their quest for greater profits currently trumps American national security, and will continue to do so.

We have reached a juncture where unbridled capitalist ideology works at contrary purposes to American nationalist ideology. You are trying to blur the distinction, to suggest that the conflict isn't REALLY there, and that it's all just ignorance on the part of nationalists such as myself. Truth is, wittingly or unwittingly, you are on the side of the capitalists here, over and against the nationalists. Because your viewpoint holds the money cards, it controls the political parties in America. You WILL get your way on these issues. And America will diminish to a second rank power, in a relationship with China roughly akin to France's relationship with the United States.

Doesn't have to happen if we do it the nationalist way.
Absolutely is fated to happen if we do it your free trade capitalist's way.
Both parties are controlled by rich men. So it will be done your way.

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