Airbus says it snooped on employees

Aircraft maker Airbus has admitted to spying on its staff from 2005 to 2007 in Germany as a part of a campaign to uncover potential corruption. Airbus wanted to check if the bank account numbers of its staff matched that of the suppliers. However, no cases of violation or corruption were detected.

There has been some hullabaloo in Germany over corporate surveillance of workers recently.

In another such case, head of Deutsche Bahn’s chief executive, Hartmut Mehdorn, admitted to a similar surveillence on its workforce. He resigned resigned from the post on March 31, 2009.

Deutsche Bahn kept a check on its 20,000 employees’ e-mails to check if the company’s policy was leaked by any of its staff members.

Mehdorn said that he did not know about the staff surveillance, but took moral responsibility.

Airbus spied on its 22000 employees’ personal information. The works council was not informed until new personnel manager Joachim Sauer found out about the action after he took his post in October 2008.

“In the year 2007 a comparison of bank account numbers was made,” spokesperson Tore Prang told daily Hamburger Abendblatt on Thursday.

Rüdiger Lütjen, Head of the company works council, defended the company’s decision of spying on its employees by stating that a 1997 labour

management contract bound the company to not only inform, but also get permission from employee representatives in such a case.

“At that time, an internal comparison of data was regarded as being legally permissible,” Airbus said.

Airbus now joins the league of German companies like Deutsche Telekom and Deutsche Bahn who had been snooping on its staff.

Airbus is an aircraft manufacturing unit of Franco-German EADS, an European aerospace company.