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 management of the Benteler automotive supplier site at Migennes (Yonne) has announced to the works council the closure of the site by the end of 2022. The management has begun four months of negotiations with the unions to draw up a social plan. As 420 employees, including 350 on permanent contracts, will lose their jobs, the employees reacted by blocking the site. The inter-union called on the employees to stop working immediately.
The plant, which manufactures engine parts and chassis, had been in a limbo since June 2021. Benteler had announced that it wanted to sell the site. Several proposals for buyers were being studied. The main one, that of the German group Mutares, was in the end rejected leading to the closure of the site.
Eurofound (2021), Benteler Automotive, Closure in France, factsheet number 106078, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/106078.