Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany - MLPD - Central Committee Department of Internationalism

The Central Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD) published the following statement on March 1, 2007:

To the people working in all European EADS/Airbus plants and their families

Dear fellow workers and colleagues,

With the strikes in the EADS/Airbus plants in Varel, Nordenham and Laupheim in Germany, as well as in the French plants in Toulouse, Saint Nazaire and Méaulte, and with protest actions, such as those in Hamburg and Bremen, you have taken up the struggle sensationally! The joint transnational struggle is the only correct answer to the ice-cold announcement of the company leadership on February 28th. We congratulate you to your courageous steps and assure you that you can count on our full support.

EADS/Airbus is not at all on the breadline. In the Airbus News of 28 February 2007, management speaks openly: The situation as regards to orders is extremely good: five years are ensured! Sales in 2006 were very good (“With regard to delivery figures and sales volume, 2006 was an excellent year for us”)! Profits are enormous: 2.85 billion euros in 2005 (=plus 17 percent).

“Cash maximization” in order to “maintain and extend our position as the leading Global Player in the commercial aircraft sector” - this is how Airbus manager Louis Gallois frankly defined “Power 8”, his program for increasing profits and exploitation.

Today every Airbus employee already produces an over-average yearly turnover of 405,311 euros. All eight modules of “Power 8” are measures for an extreme increase in exploitation: increasing productivity by 16 percent, cutting 17.4 percent of all jobs within four years, threatening with further dismissals if not enough workers leave voluntarilly, and so forth.

5000 temporary and contract workers are supposed to be losing their jobs immediately. So much for there supposedly being no dismissals for operating reasons! Are temporary workers not a part of the workforce? EADS/Airbus wants to destroy another 5000 jobs within the next 12 to 18 months. Further tens of thousands of jobs in supplier companies and outsourced areas are directly affected by the dictate. Division and mistrust are being spread among the European location sites. The truth is that everyone is affected! That is why all people have to take up the struggle together for each and every job and for the redistribution of work upon more shoulders: for the 30-hour-week with full wage compensation - Europeanwide! The situation affords trade unions as fighting organizations!

Along with the French government, the various German federal governments participated intensively in building up EADS/Airbus within the past years to become an international supermonopoly. The entire process was massively subsidized through tax revenues. The “Power 8” plans were hardly announced when the government already praised their balanced nature. But what is supposed to be fair or balanced about this destruction of jobs? The German federal government and the French government are acting as the public service providers for international monopolies like EADS/Airbus. Their concern goes to competive ability, the competion among locations sites and tax advantages for EADS. Blue and white collar workers cannot give up one single job - alone in the interests of the youth and children - neither in Germany, nor France, in Great Britain nor in Spain. The workers cannot rely upon a government that conducts anti-people policies, like Hartz IV-laws and retirement at age 67, in the interests of the large enterprises. On the contrary! Company leadership and the European governments have to be taken into the workers’ visor together. That is why this struggle is also a political struggle from the very beginning and why it has to be led with determination against the governments of the international supermonopolies, too!

In all of Europe, the workers are looking to EADS because many of them are facing the same problem: exploding profits and, at the same time, the destruction of jobs. The strike of the European EADS workforces can become an important signal to promote the transition to the working-class offensive on a broad scale.

While France and Spain have a legal right to strike, the workforces in Germany must first gain this full legal right to strike in all matters through struggle. Finally, the full order books also mean that the company is vulnerable.

The MLPD does work in more than 450 cities in Germany. 70 percent of its members are workers or “small” employees. Women make up 40% of membership. The MLPD will do everything possible to organize solidarity and support for the workforces in Germany and internationally. It also wants to contribute its knowledge and experiences with company-wide struggles like those at Siemens, Infineon, Opel or Daimler/Chrysler. The dictatorial control of a handful of international monopolies over the entire wealth of society leads to poverty for more and more people, to environmental destruction, to hunger and even war. The “Power 8” program was hardly announced - stock market courses were already rising. The MLPD stands for the revolutionary perspective of genuine socialism. It has learned from the historic experiences with the achievements and failures of socialism!

We make the following proposals:

· Europeanwide struggle for each and every job and vocational training position!

· Solidarity with the struggle of the EADS/Airbus workforces!

· The EAD profit maximization program “Power 8” must be taken back entirely!

· For a full legal right to strike in all matters!

· The future belongs to the workers - the future belongs to genuine socialism!

· Workers of all countries, unite!

· Strengthen the MLPD - the workers’ party of the future!

Dear fellow workers and colleagues!

We wish you great success in your struggle! You can count on us!

Central Committee of the MLPD
on instructions

Reinhard Funk