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.
Nylstar is a multinational company which is a world leader in the nylon textile yarn market. It owns several trademarks, such as Meryl which produces and markets a broad range of polyamide continuous filament of Nylstar. In order to tackle the recent crisis affecting the textile industry in Western Europe, Nylstar announced a reorganisation plan that regards the closure of its plant in Cesano Maderno (in the province of Milan) with the consequent loss of 170 jobs. The trade unions reacted to the decision by taking several forms of industrial action and demanding the involvement of the local and national authorities in order to find ways to avoid the redundancies envisaged by the reorganisation plan. The unions fear the negative social effects brought by the company's decision, even more so because the majority of the workers employed in Cesano Maderno plant are too young to benefit from the 'social shock absorbers' that support the incomes of redundant workers until they reach retirement age, such as the 'mobility' with a view to early retirement.
Eurofound (2007), Nylstar, Closure in Italy, factsheet number 64806, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/64806.