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.
The sugar cooperative group Cristal Union has announced to its employee representatives its project to close its Bourdon sugar factory, located in Aulnat, near Clermont-Ferrand (Puy-de-Dôme) 90 employees are concerned.
The company has also announced the upcoming and complete closure of another plant in Toury (Eure-et-Loir), which employs about 150 people. The restructuring plan also includes the closure of 50% of Erstein's packaging business in the Lower Rhine region, which will result in the loss of around 70 jobs out of the 200 at the site. As the Toury site is located not far from other Cristal Union production sites, reemployment measures to mitigate the job losses could be considered. The same applies to the Erstein plant, part of the load of which will be transferred to a site at Bazancourt (Marne). The case of the factory in Aulnat is more problematic because it collects beets from an isolated production basin in Limagne.
This is the second large reoganisation announced this year in the sugar sector after the announcement in February of plant closure by the German group Südzückers' subsidiary Saint-Louis Sucre in France (130 job cuts). These restructuring are related to a drop of prices of the beet and worldwide overcapacities. With these announcement, jobs in the agriculture sector (sugar beet growers) are also threatened.
Eurofound (2019), Cristal Union, Internal restructuring in France, factsheet number 97581, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/97581.