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.
Late 2005, the shareholders of Feral company in Tulcea (Sud-Est region, Tulcea county) decided to freeze activity in the factory, as the prices set by the electric power suppliers would put the company on losses.
Hoping to find a solution, trade union members staged protests against this decision in January 2006.
On 15 February 2006, company employees were informed that legal procedures were being applied to cut jobs. Representatives of the County Employment Agency (Agenţia Judeţeeană pentru Ocuparea Forţei de Muncă, AJOFM) met with the trade union to offer pre-redundancy services. AJOFM announced that it was the largest scale-redundancy to occur in Tulcea in recent years as 1,200 employees would lose their jobs, in successive series starting 1 March 2006. According to company management, of the approximately 1,400 employees, 1,200 are to be made redundant, the rest will stay on to ensure equipment maintenance and guard the premises.
‘The company has handed us a list of more than 170 names to be made redundant in the first series', declared a representative of AJOFM.
Starting 16 February, the trade union commenced a new wave of protests. On every working day, between 12.00 and 14.00, company employees would picket outside the city hall building.
Feral is the sole manufacturer of iron alloys in the Romanian steelworks including a wide range of manganese, chromium, nickel iron alloys and metallic silica. Over 99% of the company output is exported. The company is also the third major electric power consumer in Romania.
Eurofound (2006), Feral, Closure in Romania, factsheet number 63076, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/63076.