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.
Bombardier, a firm that operates a rail maintenance depot in Ashford, is to cut 201 jobs at its site in Ashford. Management at the firm have attributed the job losses to the end of an ongoing contract with South West Trains in December 2007. 333 are currently employed at the Ashford site, and those workers who will be affected include electricians, painters and fitters who are employed to work on South West Train carriages. The firm has also stated that the Ashford plant will not close given that it is a ‘strategically important location’ and that the 132 remaining staff will continue in employment at the site. As of October 2007, the firm has stated that it is about to start a process of consultation with staff and unions on the redundancies and that it hopes that volunteers for redundancy will come forward.
Eurofound (2007), Bombardier, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 65926, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/65926.