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.
Petroineos, the UK-based oil refinery and trading company, has announced plans to cut 187 jobs at its crude oil refinery plant in Grangemouth, Scotland, in response to a decline in demand for fuels, worsened by the COVID-19 crisis.
The chief executive of the company said that the proposed changes would make the plant a 'viable longer-term business'.
A representative of the trade union Unite said the reduction of the number of jobs is 'premature' and suggested that the company should take advantage of the UK government’s decision to extend the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme until March 2021 and use the time 'to consider alternatives to job cuts'.
Petroineos was formed in 2011 as a joint venture between the British chemicals company Ineos and the Chinese state oil company PetroChina. The plant in Grangemouth is the only oil refinery in Scotland.
Eurofound (2020), Petroineos, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 102679, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/102679.