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 Spanish public company of shipyards IZAR has been selling all of its plants to private companies because of their financial deficit and low profitability. The factory in Valencia was going to be acquired by the private group Ros Casares, who would have purchased the buildings and employed the 128 people currently working there. However, according to the media, the Spanish central administration is planning to close the plant because it will be the most profitable option in economic terms, disregarding the social and employment effects this might have in the area. Negotiations for a new Employment Reduction Programme (ERE in Spanish) will start as soon as possible. The conditions would be the same as those for the previous ERE in 2004: incentive-based and early retirements.
Eurofound (2007), Ros Casares, Merger/Acquisition in Spain, factsheet number 65310, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/65310.