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 Lille has decided to attribute the Camaïeu textile retailer to the investment fund Financière immobilière bordelaise (FIB). The FIB's offer allows to take over 80% of the workforce,that is 2,659 jobs (out of 3,100 employees) and 511 shops out of 634. A total of 441 employees will be made redundant. The takeover bid was supported by the Social and Economic Committee (CSE) and the CFDT-CGT-FO inter-union. The staff representatives, with the exception of the in-house union (38% of the votes in the last workplace elections) rejected the takeover offer presented by the current CEO.
The difficulties of Camaïeu, which was placed in receivership on 26 May, go back much further than the COVID-19 crisis alone. With a debt of €1 billion, the company saw its creditors increase their capital in 2016. Half of this debt was then converted into capital. In 2018, at the end of a long dispute, it was finally the creditors who won, after a safeguard procedure, against the historical shareholders. The teams set up since then have made it a priority to develop online sales, renovate the network and review the offer.
The investment fund specialising in commercial real estate of FIB, has decided to keep the logistics contract with the service provider Dispéo, and the headquarters in Roubaix (Nord).
Eurofound (2020), Camaïeu International, Merger/Acquisition in France, factsheet number 101518, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/101518.