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.
UPC, a leading telecommunications provider in Austria, is about to lay-off between 100 and 150 employees at its plants in Vienna and Graz. According to the newspaper Der Standard, UPC has notified their imminent dismissal to 150 employees, as of the end of December 2008. In contrast, UPC management confirmed only about 100 dismissals. Management and the works council have worked out a social plan to mitigate the social consequences of the dismissals for the workers affected. However, the responsible trade union has questioned the fairness of the social plan, since it applies only to employees who are willing to accept the dissolution of the employment relationship in mutual agreement, while not applying to employees affected by unilateral termination of employment. The union supposes that this is to put pressure on the workers concerned to agree amicably to the rescession of employment. UPC is a subsidiary of the Liberty Global Group and operates – apart from the sites in Vienna and Graz – plants in Innsbruck, Wiener Neustadt and Klagenfurt, totalling to 1,200 employees across the country.
Eurofound (2008), UPC, Internal restructuring in Austria, factsheet number 67768, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/67768.