Airbus workers’ strike: for solidarity and extension!

The Airbus struggle demonstrates the power of a united workers’ struggle: assemblies of 1,500 people, picket lines to extend the strike, strike committees, workers’ discussion groups; these are the weapons of our struggle to build a force capable of securing our demands!

The workers are fighting resolutely on their own turf!...

In July, a referendum rejected the agreement signed by certain trade unions (CCOO and the corporate unions SIPA and ATP), under the slogan “this won’t stop”; on 25 August, at a meeting, in the face of the company’s blackmail and threats, an indefinite strike was decided upon, and on 31 August (again at a meeting) it was decided to reject the company’s offer and continue the strike.

The factories in Getafe, Toledo and Seville have been joined by those in Albacete and Cádiz (representing 14,000 workers), and at the sites in France (and elsewhere) there is a stir of unrest and a spirit of solidarity that is causing concern amongst employers and the government. “Any prolongation of the movement is being closely monitored in Toulouse and across other European industrial centres” – Air-journal.fr

According to the French news agency “Franceinfo”: “The dispute, which arose at the start of the summer over wages, remote working and working conditions… is a historic strike; it is unlike any other, initiated by the workers themselves (…) and spreading to other factories (…) office and workshop staff – long divided – are coming together and challenging the division that management sought to foster, pointing out that remote working was merely the trigger (…) They are demanding a participatory assembly open to all workers to influence the wage negotiations (…) the workers are well aware that they are losing purchasing power: wages have not kept pace with inflation (…)

… Facing the company and the government

This situation ultimately forced the government to intervene directly in September. The state has come to the defence of the company’s interests and those of military production at the expense of our living conditions, “delivery deadlines must be met and prices must be lowered”. The Minister for Industry, Jordi Hereu (to the applause of senior figures from the ruling Socialist Party, such as Deputy General Secretary Montero, and the leadership of the CCOO and UGT trade unions) has been forced to mediate a new agreement (which will be put to a referendum rather than decided in assemblies), based on “mutual understanding” and “social dialogue”, where supposedly Spain, the company and the workers all come out on top… On the very same day, the exact same words were spoken by the CEO of Airbus in France: “I take the strike in Spain very seriously… we must seek the common good, ensuring things work with customers, suppliers, investors, and… employees”.

Let’s stand united and not be taken in!

We cannot give up the assemblies for the sake of a referendum! Referendums isolate us from one another and leave us alone to face the traps set for us by the bourgeoisie. The assemblies are our strength; they are where we discuss and make decisions, where we organise our struggle!

The so-called “general interest” does not exist! We workers have interests and perspectives that are at odds with those of our exploiters! We workers have no homeland! We share no interests with them!

The Airbus workers are showing us the way! The rapid spread of the struggle, solidarity, not being taken in by the company and the state. These are conditions that must be maintained through both advances and setbacks, so as not to fall into division!

The struggle must spread beyond the sector as well!

Although the struggle has spread to all factories in Spain, with support from Airbus workers in France and even the possibility of solidarity actions, if it remains confined to the sector, it will lose the strength of workers’ unity. Let us remember the crushing defeat of the miners’ strike of the 1980s in Britain, which spread to most of the mining industry but was deliberately isolated from other sectors by the Thatcher government with the help of the Trade Unions.

Before the summer, the education sector in several autonomous communities took up the struggle for more recruitment and better wages, organising demonstrations of 35,000 people (in the Valencian munipality, for example), but on a corporatist basis, despite being public-sector workers, and without being able to take the initiative to seek unity with the health sector or other sectors engaged in struggle.

But the education strike continues after the summer and is spreading to other municipalities, where demonstrations are planned this month and a major demonstration is scheduled for the end of September in Madrid. Let’s send delegations to these demonstrations! Let the picket lines reach out to other sectors on the front line!

The strength of the struggle lies in its mass character and rapid spread Confining ourselves to our own sector is a trap!

We can force them to back down from their attacks on our conditions!

In 2006, the French government announced the First Employment Contract (CPE), a major step towards job insecurity and precarious working conditions for young workers. Within two months, the students (in reality, future workers) waged a struggle “unlike any other”, characterised by a dynamic of expansion and solidarity towards other sectors and generations of the working class, through open General Assemblies and delegations sent to other sectors. It was this that sent shivers down the bourgeoisie’s spine and forced them to withdraw the CPE.

It is this outreach that promises to increasingly advance the perspective that workers “are all in the same boat”, as workers in Britain and France said in 2022 and 2023. It is this dynamic that promises to advance the idea that we must organise ourselves in General Assemblies open to all workers: to discuss how to move forward, how to send delegations to other sectors, how to respond in a united manner and avoid falling into the traps set for us. It is this dynamic of discussion, self-organisation and extension that frightens them, and not the false illusions of ‘blocking the sector’ or ‘drawing the government’s attention by honking car horns and drumming’. The struggle must spread simultaneously to France and to other sectors.

The attacks are global and brutal

As we said before, the CPE was halted in 2006, but today, through other sinister channels, job insecurity has increased dramatically in France, Spain and across the world.

There is a whole global dynamic of attacks on workers, underpinned by the crisis of a capitalism increasingly engulfed by military chaos, which is forcing governments to launch an offensive against our living conditions in order to safeguard their profits and cover the costs of militarisation. In Germany, for example, the automobile industry is threatening plant closures reminiscent of those in the 1980s, with cuts to thousands of jobs (125,000 by 2035 at VW, BMW, Mercedes and Audi) whilst simultaneously shifting towards military production. This is accompanied by cuts to pensions, healthcare and education, as well as longer working hours… all to finance the war economy. In other words, a logic of pure destruction! And Spain is mired in the very same logic! The only prospect capitalism offers us is misery and destruction, ‘more guns and less butter’, in a downward spiral leading humanity towards catastrophe.

But there is a global dynamic of struggle!

Since 2022, we have witnessed a reaction amongst the global working class that marks a turning point – a break with decades of passivity and difficulty in fighting as united workers on a mass scale. In the “summer of discontent” in 2022 in Britain and in the struggle against pension reforms in France in 2023, the same spirit was in the air: ‘Enough is enough!’ and ‘Let’s all fight together!’ This process of struggle has continued, spurred on by the workers’ determination to reject the increasingly vicious attacks on their living conditions, and is giving rise to a new “hot autumn” with strikes not only in Spain and France but also in Italy (particularly in the transport sector), Belgium and other countries. This highlights all the more clearly a vital necessity: we must extend the struggle with determination and speed to other sectors and other countries! Only a conscious and mass workers’ struggle will be capable of arming us to reverse the destructive logic of capitalism.

Workers of the world, unite!

International Communist Current

September 2026