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 high-performance casting parts manufacturer Aubert & Duval, a subsidiary of the Eramet Group, announced the loss of 462 jobs and the creation of 83 new positions. The reorganisation is linked to the COVID-19 crisis, which is hitting the aeronautics sector, but is also linked to a plan that has been underway for several months to take the company out of the Eramet Group's scope. The reorganisation provides for an adjustment of the workforce at the seven French sites. Out of a total of approximately 3,700 positions, the project involves cutting 462 and creating 83 others, that is a net loss of nearly 380 jobs.
Negotiations with the unions will take place until the first quarter of 2021 to reach an agreement on voluntary departures. The company is proposing 307 voluntary retirement measures and some 60 voluntary departures, according to a union source. In addition, 273 changes in job decriptions will be made, with changes in missions, or even jobs and working hours among those to be retained. Half of the jobs lost are in the Puy-de-Dôme. The company has a site there with 1,400 employees in Les Ancizes, of a size comparable to that of Pamiers, in Ariège.
Three former reorganisations were recorded in 2003 with 208 job cuts and 187 job creations, in 2013 with 74 job cuts and in 2019 with 100 job cretations.
Eurofound (2020), Aubert & Duval, Internal restructuring in France, factsheet number 102731, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/102731.