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.
Sainsbury’s, the UK-based supermarket chain has started the compulsory 45-day consultation period with the intention of cutting 400 price controller jobs. The 400 affected staff will either be offered redeployment opportunities or made redundant. The price controller's job is to make sure that the prices which are displayed on the shelves are accurate - this task will be shared among other workers in future. This job cuts are part of a major reorganisation process, which may lead to further redundancies in the future. The trade union Unite’s national officer for food and drink, Julia Long, called on Sainsbury’s leadership to guarantee that there will not be any compulsory redundancies and that an equalities' audit is carried out to assess the effects of the proposed job cuts.
Other large British supermarket chains, such as Tesco, Waitrose and Asda, have also announced large scale job losses in the past twelve months in response to their decreasing market shares.
Eurofound (2017), Sainsbury's, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 90540, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/90540.