Hamburg — European aerospace giant Airbus and German metal workers' union IG Metall met for a seventh round of negotiations on Monday over the restructuring of civil aircraft production in Germany.

If the talks in Hamburg fail to produce a result, the union plans to call on its members to vote for a strike. "January 31 is the deadline," IG Metall said.

At the beginning of December, more than 14,000 workers took part in token strikes, some lasting several days, that largely paralysed production in the busy year-end period.

It is unclear how long these latest talks will go on. Sources from the negotiating teams said the outcome might not be known until Tuesday.

Daniel Friedrich, IG Metall's chief negotiator and district leader for northern Germany, had previously said in a letter to the workforce that the last round of negotiations on January 14 had brought some progress.

On Monday, he said it remains to be seen "how reliable the talks so far are at the end of the day.

"Airbus would not comment on the status of the negotiations.

The company wants to combine the assembly of fuselages and structures in a new subsidiary. The Airbus plants in Stade, parts of the Hamburg site and the Airbus subsidiary Premium Aerotec with three of the four Augsburg plants and the Bremen and Nordenham sites would be affected.

In total, about 13,000 employees are likely to be affected by the plans at Airbus Operations and Premium Aerotec.

In addition, Airbus plans to sell the parts production at Premium Aerotec in Augsburg, Varel, Friesland and in Romania to an investor.

IG Metall and Airbus have now held six rounds of negotiations on the conditions of the restructuring, but the union remains unsatisfied. It wants to prevent the sale of parts production if possible and is calling for location and employment commitments at Airbus structural assembly plants well into the next decade.

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