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.
Alcatel SA and Lucent Technologies Inc. signed a merger agreement on 2 April 2006 to form a Paris-based telecommunications equipment giant. The news was followed by the announcement that around 9,000 employees across the world would lose their jobs.
On 9 February 2007, Alcatel-Lucent confirmed that the company is to cut between 12,000 and 13,000 employees, more than 15% of its workforce, after posting severe net losses and a steep decline in sales in the fourth quarter of 2006. The Franco-American group faces the threat of industrial action over the redundancies. Alcatel-Lucent made a net loss of 618 million euro in the final quarter of 2006 whereas in 2005 the profits of the company amounted to 381 million euro.
On 30th October 2007, the Managing Director of Alcatel-Lucent announced that the Franco-US telecommunications equipment provider is to cut a further 3,000 to 5,000 jobs in addition to the 12,500 job cuts announced in February 2007. The French-American telecoms-equipment company, a big provider of broadband apparatus, has been affected by a slowdown in sales, which it blames partly on a slump in the construction of homes in America.
The group, which has decided not to abandon any of its main business areas, reported a net loss of 258 million EUR in the third quarter of 2007, as compared to a profit of 532 million EUR a year earlier. Turnover fell by 11% to 4.3 billions EUR, and was brought down by a 24% decrease in revenue from its mobile operations. The group remains cautious with regard to the outlook for the year, given the 'uncertainty' of the market. Alcatel-Lucent operates in more than 130 countries.
Eurofound (2006), Alcatel-Lucent, Merger/Acquisition in World, factsheet number 64920, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/64920.