Airbus unions in Spain oppose restart of operations

Unions representing Airbus workers in Spain on Wednesday condemned its decision to resume production despite the coronavirus pandemic, saying it endangered the health of employees, with 138 of them already infected.
GCT, the minority union, called for Airbus workers to begin an indefinite strike on March 30 to protest the restart of production on Monday in Spain, where the company builds part of the tail section of its aircraft and assembles A400M military planes.
"The company must understand that the occupational health of its workers is not a game," the union said in a tweet. The aerospace sector is not an "essential and strategic" industry that must remain open during a health emergency, the union had already argued in a statement on Monday.
Spain's coronavirus death toll on Wednesday overtook that of China, where the virus originated late last year, rising to 3,434 after 738 people died over the past 24 hours, the government said. Only Italy now has a higher death toll.
Spain declared a state of emergency on March 14 to try to curb the spread of the virus, which bans people from leaving home except for essential outings. Airbus's majority union in Spain, the CCOO, has so far not joined the strike call, but it also demanded that production stop at the company's eight plants across the country which employ around 13,000 people.
"Management wants production to return to normal gradually... we feel that during a state of emergency, that can't happen because it is not possible to adopt all the safety measures needed to protect the health of workers," the CCOO delegate who represents Airbus workers, Francisco San Jose, told AFP.