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.
French car components manufacturer Cignet Electronics SAS, owned by the American holding company Combined Industrial Group Network (Cignet), will cut between 93 and 100 jobs out of 192 employees in its Jarville plant (Meurthe et Moselle) between January and February 2007. The cuts are part of a plan to reorganise the factory, as it was announced on 7 December 2006. The decision is due to a continuing fall in sales, which could not be offset by refocusing on remanufacturing of spare parts. Cignet Electronics may pay between 10,000 and 20,000 euro in compensation to each of the dismissed workers depending on their seniority in the factory. The annual revenue of the Jarville unit fell from 40 million euro in 2004 to some 25 million euro (expected) in 2006.
Cignet Electronics was founded in September 2003, when Cignet acquired the Jarville plant from car parts manufacturer Siemens VDO France, a unit of German conglomerate Siemens AG.
Eurofound (2006), Cignet Electronics SAS, Internal restructuring in France, factsheet number 64578, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/64578.