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.
Vrhnika-based leather producer, Industrija usnja Vrnika (IUV), has launched bankruptcy proceedings which will incur a loss of more than 500 jobs. The company is 76% owned by the state-owned Slovenian Restitution Fund and employs 600 people. IUV has been in a rather difficult situation for years — losses and problems with the payment of salaries - and would not survive without help from its owner. There have been several attempts to sell the company to a strategic investor but all of them have failed. As a result, on 29 December 2008, the bankruptcy procedure was launched for IUV. The factory, which is near Ljubljana, produces certified organic leather, heavy metal free leather and conventional leather.
According to the latest information (2009-01-20), the number of job reductions is 483. Their contracts will be ended by the end of January 2009.
Newspaper Delo of 2009-02-20 reports that within the bankruptcy proceedings of IUV another 79 workers will be laid off, making the overall number of those losing jobs 562. These 79 workers are currently employed in the separate department of IUV, which employs disabled persons (Invalidsko podjetje).
Eurofound (2008), Industrija usnja Vrhnika, Bankruptcy in Slovenia, factsheet number 67729, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/67729.