The European aviation group Airbus pays its employees a special bonus because of the high inflation and the energy crisis.

For employees in Germany, France and Spain, the one-time payment amounts to 1,500 euros, an Airbus spokesman confirmed on Tuesday, corresponding information from the news agencies dpa and dpa-AFX from an internal letter to employees. The workforce in Great Britain should receive 1500 British pounds (about 1720 euros) per person, in other countries there should also be special payments. The money is to be paid out to around 120,000 employees with the next paycheck.

Ongoing collective bargaining

The union IG Metall praised the move: "Airbus is setting a good example," said Daniel Friedrich, district manager of IG Metall Coast. The special payment helps the employees to cope with the sharply rising prices. However, such one-time payments were not enough. Therefore, an increase in the table in the ongoing collective bargaining in the metal and electrical industry must ensure more money for the employees in the long term.

A few days ago, the IG BCE union pushed through two tax-free special payments of 1,500 euros each for employees in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries in addition to permanent wage increases of 3.25 percent each in two stages. The federal government had made the option of tax-free one-off payments of up to 3,000 euros possible in the fight against inflation.