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 spray equipment manufacturer Exel Industries has announced a plan to cut 185 jobs in its agricultural spraying division, mainly in France but also in Spain. This draft plan, which will lead to the closure of two sites in France, aims to react to decisions to ban plant protection products in France and Europe. The group has informed the employees representatives and started negotiations. The company is expected to make approximately 130 redundancies in France and 55 in Spain. These announcements come after Austria's decision to ban glyphosate-based herbicides and France already phasing them out by the end of 2021.
The French activities will be grouped into production and research competence centres, which will involve the closure of the Noyers-Saint-Martin (Oise) and Saint-Denis de l'Hôtel (Loiret) sites, whose activities will be transferred to Beaurainville (Pas-de-Calais) and Epernay (Marne) respectively. The two sites that will be closed employ about 50 people each. The plan also provides for the outsourcing of the mechanised welding activity carried out at the Beaurainville site, where 30 positions will be cut. The Spanish site (in Lleida, Catalonia) will also be affected because it is a production and marketing site. The production will be transferred to Epernay. The Spanish site currently employs about 70 people, but the commercial part is still in use. There will be approximately 55 job cuts.
In April, the group announced a plan to reduce the workforce by 100 people, or one third of the workforce, at its beet harvester production site in Germany.
Eurofound (2019), Exel Industries, Internal restructuring in European Union, factsheet number 98094, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/98094.