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 electronics giant Sony is to close its south Wales manufacturing plant with the loss of 650 jobs because of falling sales of traditional-style TVs. Four hundred jobs will be lost when the factory in Bridgend - where cathode ray tubes (CRT) are made - shuts down by March 2006. Another 250 will be lost at the firm's Pencoed assembly plant nearby.
In its heyday, the plants employed more than 4,000 people, but this number had dwindled to around 900 before the announcement. The Japanese firm blamed the growth in demand for flat-screen televisions instead of its CRT models. The firm had already announced 300 job losses at the south Wales plants in January 2005.
Eurofound (2005), Sony, Closure in United Kingdom, factsheet number 61813, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/61813.