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.
Pullmantur, the Spanish tourism company specialised in the cruise ship business, has begun negotiations with workers' representatives to agree on the terms of a collective dismissal which could affect between 186 and 248 of the company's 311 employees. The restructuring would follow the bankruptcy proceedings started in June 2020 in response to the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. Further details of the dismissal procedure are still not known but are expected to be disclosed in February 2021.
The aim of the company is to implement the collective redundancy plan between the end of January and the beginning of February, in order to try to find an investor to back the viability plan and thus resume its activities not later than June 2021. However, workers' representatives claim that this information is a strategy to divert attention from the difficulties in finding ships to operate with.
Indeed, in July 2020, two of the three ships owned by the company were scrapped, with the third one waiting for the same treatment. Operations have been temporarily suspended until December 2021.
Pullmantur is owned by the Springwater fund and Royal Caribbean. In summer 2020, the company declared bankruptcy for its three Spanish companies (Pullmantur, Pullmantur Holdings and Pullmantur Cruises).
Eurofound (2020), Pullmantur, Bankruptcy in Spain, factsheet number 102985, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/102985.