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.
US multinational Crown Equipment Corporation is to close a plant in Co Galway with the loss of 150 jobs, by 2006. The work done at the plant is to be relocated to China. The plant has been in operation since the early 1960s and at its height employed more than 300 people. The company said the decision to move was ‘economics based' and that it greatly regretted the decision. Crown Equipment Corporation is one of the largest lift truck manufacturers in the world. It has its headquarters in Ohio and has manufacturing plants in six US locations as well as in Galway; Sydney, Australia; Roding, Germany; and Queretaro, Mexico.
Eurofound (2005), Crown Equipment, Offshoring/Delocalisation in Ireland, factsheet number 61634, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/61634.