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.
FrieslandCampina is a Dutch dairy company, fully owned by Zuivelcoöperatie FrieslandCampina U.A., with 18,900 member dairy farmers in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. It is one of the world’s largest dairy companies and has a cooperative tradition stretching back more than 140 years. This company produces and sells consumer products such as dairy-based beverages, infant nutrition, cheese and desserts in many European countries. FrieslandCampina has announced that it plans to close its factory in Gütersloh (Germany) in March 2019, as part of 'a comprehensive reorientation in the German market' strategy. Specifically, it planned to refocus its efforts on core brands such as Landliebe, Tuffi and Frico, as well as concentrate its commercial activities in the Dusseldorf area (Germany). The closure of the Gutersloh site will affect 231 employees due to overcapacities in the highly fragmented German market and loss-making production of private label desserts representing the major part of the Gütersloh volumes. The firm said that this category would now be discontinued, while other production lines would be transferred to the plants in Cologne (Germany), Heilbronn (Germany) and Maasdam (Netherlands).
Eurofound (2017), FrieslandCampina, Reshoring in Netherlands, factsheet number 93, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/93.