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.
ASDA, the UK-based supermarket chain, has announced that it will close its ’home shopping centre’ in Enfield in north-London, in a move that will make 261 employees redundant. At the time of the announcement, the statutory consultations with affected staff were already underway.
At the home shopping centre, online grocery orders are packed and then sent to customers’ homes. The vice president of Grocery Home Shopping at ASDA said the Enfield site could not be further improved to “meet the speed of fulfilment and product ranges that our customers now expect” and the company was now relying on two recently opened automated home shopping centres.
The regional organiser for the GMB union said that they will be “actively involved throughout the consultation to attempt to secure positions for our GMB members."
Eurofound (2018), Asda, Closure in United Kingdom, factsheet number 94732, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/94732.