Labor & Employment Law

Boeing Official Calls out French for Protectionism

By James Parks

While French-based Airbus is trying to grab a multibillion aerial tanker contract from the U.S. Air Force, its home country won’t even allow the United States to compete in its defense market. Now, a leading French businessman is calling out the French government for its protectionist policies.

In a recent press conference, Boeing France President Yves Galland, a former French trade official and politician, said the United States has ordered hundreds of U.S. Army helicopters from Eurocopter, an Airbus subsidiary, but France has not bought any defense equipment from Boeing in 30 years.

This is an important issue because the U.S. government is still mulling whether to grant a $35 billion Air Force aerial tanker contract to either Northrop-EADS (Airbus) or Boeing. The contract was rebid after the Government Accountability Office upheld Boeing’s protest of the original decision to award the contract to Northrup-EADS.

If Boeing wins the contract, 44,000 family-supporting production jobs will be created across the country. The few thousand jobs created under an EADS contract would be low-paid assembly jobs with no union protection.

Northrop-EADS has threatened to pull its proposal unless final rules reverse what it regards as an unfair advantage for Boeing, which says the competition is fair.

Galland told the news conference:

We have examples where campaigns are fair and open in the U.S., so when [the French] want to give lessons on openness, it would be better to set an example and not behave as one of the most closed and protectionist in military affairs in the world.

Earlier this month, Airbus asked for an additional $7.6 billion from governments that have purchased its transport plane?even though the World Trade Organization ruled that billions of dollars in European subsidies to Airbus violated trade rules.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on January 22, 2010 (boomark / email).