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.
Scooter manufacturer, Peugeot Motocycle, owned by the Indian company Mahindra and Mahindra since 2014, has announded a new employment safeguard-plan which will result in 90 job losses in the first quarter of 2019, on a total workforce of about 373 employees. The management will try to avoid direct dismissals through a voluntary departure plan, but according to the union CFDT, dismissals are possible. The company has lost up to €70 million since 2015 and aims to reverse the trend with seven new disruptive models to be produced by 2020. The plant is the last French production site of scooters. According to the union CFDT, it is the fifth employment safeguard-plan since 2003.
When Peugeot Motocycle was taken over by the Indian company Mahindra and Mahindra in October 2014, the new owner already cut 90 jobs on a total workforce of about 488 employees at Maudeure. A previous job reduction was recorded in the ERM database in July 2004, when the site belonged to car manufacturer PSA Peugeot-Citroën, with 200 job cuts on a total workforce of 1,100 employees.
Eurofound (2018), Peugeot Motocycles, Internal restructuring in France, factsheet number 94546, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/94546.