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.
Loganair, the UK-based regional airline, has announced that it had started redundancy consultations with its staff at Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Inverness airports in Scotland, with 165 jobs at risk of redundancy.
The proposed job cuts are in addition to 92 roles which have already been made redundant. New redundancies will be 70 at Glasgow Airport, 49 at Aberdeen Airport, 26 at Edinburgh Airport, and 20 at Inverness Airport.
A representative of the airline said cutting all 165 jobs is the 'worst case scenario' in case the aviation industry will not recover from the COVID-19 crisis during next spring and added that the company wants to use the extended Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to retain workers during the winter months.
A representative of the trade union Unite said the news was 'absolutely shattering' and promised to work with Loganair to minimise the number of compulsory redundancies.
Loganair is based at Glasgow Airport and before the start of the pandemic it served more than 40 destinations in the UK, the Republic of Ireland and mainland Europe.
Eurofound (2020), Loganair, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 102682, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/102682.