Reuters: Airbus draws union interest as it opens first U.S. factory

Thomson Reuters
People are silhouetted past a logo of the Airbus Group during the Airbus annual news conference in Colomiers


http://www.businessinsider.com/r-airbus-draws-union-interest-as-it-opens-first-us-factory-2015-9

By Alwyn Scott

MOBILE, Ala, (Reuters) - Airbus Group NV threw a party for its new U.S. workers ahead of the formal opening Monday of its first commercial jet factory in the United States, and representatives of the machinists union joined the crowd.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) set up a booth at the Saturday celebration near the $600 million facility, a family-focused event complete with free red-white-and-blue t-shirts and a fireworks display.

The machinists' low-key presence highlighted the new Airbus factory's significance to a commercial aircraft industry that's in transition from a unionized, centralized past to a future where rivals Boeing Co and Airbus build planes around the world, in factories that may no longer be union shops.

The IAM, which represents about 35,000 Boeing employees, said it is taking a soft approach at Airbus: offering information but not promising to create a bargaining unit at the company. About two dozen union members, in t-shirts that said "union values" and "blue collar hero," handed out information to workers on Saturday.

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