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.
Bentley, a manufacturer of high quality motor vehicles, has announced that it is to cut between 200 and 300 jobs at its site in Crewe in the north-west of England. The job losses have come about as the firm has decided to end a night shift that is operated at the site. Shift workers at the site will work a four day week, rather than the current three day week, when the changes are implemented. 3,800 are employed at the Crewe site, and the firm attributes the job losses to a recent decline in sales. The firm expects that the job losses will be achieved through a policy of voluntary redundancies. As of October 2008, there is no information on when the job losses will be implemented by. Bentley is owned by the German multi-national car manufacturer Volkswagen.
Eurofound (2008), Bentley, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 67340, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/67340.