Airbus workers plan March 16 strike

Published 9:00 pm Monday, March 5, 2007

Even angry Airbus workers won’t mess with the Ides of March.

Instead, the unions at Airbus have decided not to tempt fate too much and settled on March 16 — 24 hours after the ominous day — as their day to protest the plane maker’s plan to cut 10,000 jobs.

Back in 44 B.C., a soothsayer cautioned Roman leader Julius Caesar of danger that would befall him on the Ides of March. When the 15th of March arrived, Caesar paid no heed to the warning. Members of the Roman Senate feared Caesar’s ambitions would turn him into a tyrant and stabbed him to death.

There’s a lesson in Caesar’s tale somewhere for Airbus and its workers.

It doesn’t take a soothsayer to know the strike scheduled for March 16 still holds some bad omens for Airbus. The company, if anything, needs to bolster production not delay it.

At this point, Airbus officials’ main ambition seems to be to stay in business, and perhaps challenge Boeing once again for its share of the market. Despite painful job cuts and plant closures, will Airbus’s loyal legion of workers keep the faith in their company? More importantly, will the governments of France and Germany sabotage Airbus as the Senators did to Caesar?

For Caesar, the cruelest cut came from his trusted relative Marcus Brutus (“Et Tu, Brute?”). For Airbus, the worst treachery could come from aspiring politicians in the governments who have backed the company if they no longer feel that Airbus acts in their best interests.