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.
Boehringer Ingelheim France, subsidiary of the German pharmaceutical group Boehringer Ingelheim, is to cut 178 jobs. The management has already announced a restructuring plan to its French central works council.
According to the trade unions FO and CFE-CGC, the social plan will affect 242 positions including 178 job cuts (143 medical sales reprensentatives and 35 administrative jobs in Reims and Paris). The remainder 64 employees will probably receive a proposal of internal transfer.
As announced the restructuring plan covering the corporate facilities in Southern Europe aims to maintain the group’s competitiveness. Current conditions such as price reductions and the slow uptake of new products are mentioned.
Management and unions started negotiations in the framework of the recent law about the "employment securisation" to agree on the content of the social plan.
On 31 July 2013, the group has closed its last factory in France in Blanquefort, near Bordeaux (Gironde) with 53 dismissals.
Eurofound (2013), Boehringer Ingelheim France, Internal restructuring in France, factsheet number 75840, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/75840.