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.
Land Rover has announced details of its voluntary redundancy programme which will see the loss of 1,300 jobs. The move follows a decision to shift production of the Land Rover Freelander from Solihull to Halewood on Merseyside and to stop making diesel engines for the Defender at the West Midlands site. Solihull, which employs about 8,000 people, will continue to produce the Defender using engines made at Ford's diesel plant in Dagenham, the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport. The new engine is expected to mean production of the Defender continuing until at least 2010.
Roger Maddison, national officer for the Amicus trade union, said it was 'a sad day but entirely expected' after the transfer of Freelander production to Merseyside. 'These jobs may never be replaced in the West Midlands, which is a tragedy, but some solace is that these jobs will at least remain in the UK and that the redundancy terms being offered to people are the best the industry has ever seen.'
Eurofound (2006), Land Rover, Relocation in United Kingdom, factsheet number 62907, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/62907.