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 family business Les Menuisieries Grégoire, based in Saint-Martial-d'Artenset (Dordogne), which was placed in receivership in March 2022, has been liquidated and its 237 employees will be laid off. The company, which is specialised in the manufacture of wood, aluminium, and PVC windows, has not found a buyer. The Court of Périgueux pronounced the judicial liquidation on 28 April, which led to the closure of the site the following day. The company was taken over in 2018 by the Prudentia fund and, despite a contribution of €10 million, the company has not managed to recover.
In the 2000s, the company employed up to 700 people. The CFDT union (the French Democratic Confederation of Labour) is afraid of ‘a massacre for the entire employment basin with the eventual disappearance of over 600 jobs at local suppliers’. The CFDT criticises the management, who received €10 million of State aid and should have filed for bankruptcy earlier to find a buyer.
The crisis related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the increase in the prices of raw materials have finally destroyed the hopes of a recovery, despite a rising turnover, from 3 million euros in 2018 to €34 million in 2021.
Eurofound (2022), Nouvelles Menuiseries Grégoire, Closure in France, factsheet number 106726, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/106726.