Productivity has slipped at a Montreal-area Airbus factory trying to ramp up assembly of the plane maker’s smallest commercial jet, as workers consider a new contract offer, according to sources and a union memo sent on Friday.
Details of the new offer, made after workers overwhelmingly rejected an earlier one this month, were not available. The European plane maker is trying to grow production of the money-losing A220 jets, which have roughly 110 to 130 seats, to a combined 14 planes a month in 2026, spread between the factory in Mirabel, Quebec, and a plant in Mobile, Alabama. That would be up from six a month in December 2022, the latest publicized rate.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union , which wants higher wages and better conditions for the workers at the Airbus facility in Mirabel, said earlier this month it would start pressure tactics that would slow production after workers gave strike authorization.