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 Tereos group, the world's fourth largest sugar producer, has just announced the closure of two factories in France and its plan to sell a third site, a starch factory. In total, 214 jobs are affected by this restructuring.
The management has presented the reorganisation project to the employees' representatives before launching negotiations with the view of drawing up a job protection plan with the trade unions. Tereos plans to stop sugar production in Escaudoeuvres (Nord) but to keep its logistics centre there. The management also wants to close the distillery in Morains (Marne) and look for a buyer for the potato starch factory in Haussimont (Marne). In total, 214 jobs out of 4,000 in France are affected by this restructuring. Tereos has announced internal redeployment solutions to sites located in proximity of those that will be closed. Tereos has 19 plants in France, including 9 sugar mills, 6 distilleries and 4 starch mills.
To justify its plan, the management invokes market volatility, soaring energy costs and a lasting drop in production. This decline is linked, on the one hand, to the end of the sugar quotas in 2017 and the disappearance of their benefits, which are turning many growers away from sugar beet cultivation. And on the other hand, the yellowing disease and the ban on chemical treatments (neonicotinoids).
A previous reorganisation has been recorded in the ERM Database with 234 job cuts in 2007 (FR-Tereos-2007).
Eurofound (2023), Tereos France, Internal restructuring in France, factsheet number 108623, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/108623.