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.
Gestamp, the Spanish multinational automotive engineering company, has announced the closure of two of its centers of its subsidiaries GTS and Matricería Deusto in Zamudio (Vizcaya), affecting 230 workers. The company ensures that these closures are part of its reorganisation plans due to the cCOVID-19 crisis, which has impacted the automotive sector. The restructuring plan in Spain will affect workers at the tooling facilities (mainly in Vizcaya), but also office workers in Madrid.
Workers of GTS and Matricería Deusto have organised protests before the Basque Parliament in Vitoria asking the Minister of Economic Development to demand that the Gestamp group not close these plants. However, Gestamp assures to maintain its commitment to the electric car, announcing an investment of €17 million in the AIC research complex in Amorebieta (also in Vizcaya) for a laboratory dedicated to battery-powered vehicles.
Eurofound (2020), Gestamp, Closure in Spain, factsheet number 102100, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/102100.