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.
Les Laminoirs du Ruau ', member of the Beltrame group, is about to close its site of Monceau-sur-Sambre, situated in Wallonia. The closure will concern all workers of the manufacturer of steel products, leaving 107 redundant.
On the 12th November, the company's management declared the intention to close down the production area and to start the 'Renault procedure'. The 'Renault procedure' defines a period of two months in the course of which trade unions and the employer discuss every aspect of a restructuring plan. The management has announced its plans to close the site by February 2012. The company has been achieving bad results since 2008 and recorded diminishing activity.
Currently, the Belgian Government is trying to find companies that would be interested in taking over the production site and its workers. As for trade unions, they stopped work several times to showed discontent with the closure.
Eurofound (2011), Laminoirs du Ruau, Closure in Belgium, factsheet number 72759, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/72759.