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 Commercial Court of Grenoble has validated the takeover plan proposed by the current CEO of Frank & Pignard, which includes 237 job cuts. This company located at Thyez (Haute-Savoie), a well-known company of screw-cutting, was placed in receivership on 2 June.
The project provides for 237 job cuts of a total workforce of 367 jobs. The project chosen to take over the company is the one carried by three of the four current shareholders.
On the day the judgement was announced, around twenty employees gathered in front of the factory's headquarters to denounce a flawed project. A trade unionist pointed the finger at the current CEO, a member of the trio of buyers. The employees are wondering how their CEO, who has mismanaged their company, can be allowed 'to buy it by putting nearly 240 people out of work'.
Frank & Pignard is one of the historical companies of the French department of Haute-Savoie, where it is operating since 1955.
Eurofound (2020), Frank et Pignard, Merger/Acquisition in France, factsheet number 101395, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/101395.