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.
As announced at the end of November 2018, chemicals and pharmaceuticals manufacturer Bayer will cut 10 per cent or about 12,000 positions of its global workforce. The number of job cuts in Germany has been announced to the Works council on 6 December, approximately 900 jobs shall be cut in research and development in the pharmaceuticals divisions and 350 other positions. Two recently built plants in Wuppertal will be affected. The works council of one of the Wzuppertal plants currently employing 400 workers announced that the closure will begin in early January 2019 and that the site will be sold off.
In Germany direct dismissals are banned under an agreement signed with the works council and the chemical workers unions some years ago.
Eurofound (2018), Bayer, Internal restructuring in Germany, factsheet number 96165, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/96165.