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.
Larco, a general mining and metallurgical company, is in immediate danger to cut all of its 1200 employees, closing down its units, since its production decreased by 30% and the company is running out of cash.
Employees asked the Greek Minister of Finance to precipitate the lending procedures so that the company could recoup its debts.
On 11th December 2008, forty-six MPs from the main opposition PASOK party tabled a question in Parliament, addressed to the ministers of finance and development, in which they alleged mismanagement at Larco, the General Mining and Metallurgical Company (GMMSA). The opposition MPs maintain that both the "dismissed" and the new board of Larco were responsible for the mismanagement and decreased corporate losses.
Larco (General Mining and Metallurgical Company) is a state-controlled company producing nickel, electric furnace slag and aggregates. It is one of the five largest ferronickel producers in the world and for many years the sole manufacturer in the European Union, explorating, mining, smelting and marketing of ferronickel. Larco owns four mines in Evia and Agios Ioannis, south Greece and Kastoria as well as a lignite mine in Servia, as well as a smelting plant in Larymna.
In 2004 the company returned to profitability and in 2007 founded two affiliated subsidiaries: LarcoEnergy and LarcoDomi
Eurofound (2008), Larco, Closure in Greece, factsheet number 67659, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/67659.