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.
The Danish manufacturer of windmills, Vestas, plans to dismiss 350 employees at the company's wing factory in Lem. This was announced in a press release on 16 November 2016. The main reasons for the dismissals are the high labour costs at the factory and the need to continuously strengthen the company's competitiveness, according to the management. Vestas employs 4,600 people in Denmark and approximately 1,000 of these work at the the factory in Lem. Thus, a third of the staff at Lem is going to be made redundant at the beginning of 2017. The final number of dismissed employees is still subject to obligatory negotiations between the management and the employees' representatives, which will be conducted in the coming weeks.
Eurofound (2016), Vestas, Internal restructuring in Denmark, factsheet number 89127, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/89127.