Ethics in the digital workplace
Digitisation and automation technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), can affect working conditions in a variety of ways and their use in the workplace raises a host of new ethical concerns.
The coach passenger transport company FlixBus obtained before the Commercial Court of Nanterre, the judicial liquidation of its intercity coach subsidiary Eurolines (acquired in 2019 from the Transdev group), thereby cutting 115 jobs. At the date of the judgment 70 employees were already involved in an ongoing Employment safeguard plan (PSE). The 45 remaining employees 'will leave with the minimum' in terms of redundancy payments and the employees concerned by the PSE risk losing the supra-legal redundancy payments negotiated previously, the employees' lawyer said.
The management justifies its decision on the basis of the company's accounting and financial situation. This situation, continues the group, has suddenly and strongly been aggravated by the health and economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The lawyer believes that FlixBus gutted Eurolines to regain market share and try to get rid of the employees at a lower cost, using the economic crisis linked to the COVID-19 epidemic as a pretext.
Eurofound (2020), Eurolines, Bankruptcy in France, factsheet number 101297, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/101297.