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 Cortefiel Consortium is a Spanish multinational specialised in the manufacture of textiles. The Company has three production centres in Morocco with 750 employees, another plant in Hungary with 300 employees, and two plants in Spain, one in Málaga (Andalusia) with 450 employees, the other one in Madrid with 150 employees. The Company only produces 15 % of the textiles it sells and has decided the closure of the plant in Madrid. The measure tries to concentrate production in one plant as well as to maintain the competitiveness of the company. This measure will create 150 redundancies. The Management will try to either relocate part of the workforce in the Málaga plant, to subcontract part of it and to dismiss the rest through incentives or simply with the non-renewal of labour contracts. The labour representatives said the measure affects a group of workers with ages ranging from 45 to 55, and have announced protests against the plan.
On 10 February 2005, labour representatives and management have agreed to relocate within Madrid the workers that are not going to be early retired but the production centre of Madrid will be closed.
Eurofound (2005), Cortefiel, Internal restructuring in Spain, factsheet number 61073, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/61073.