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.
In contrast to initial media reports, Doka, a formwork producer located in Amstetten (Lower Austria), is to lay off around 190 (instead of 150) of its current 3,300 employees by spring 2009. According to Reinhold Süssenbacher, the CEO of the Umdasch group to which Doka belongs, the company is required to reduce capacities due to rapidly declining order intakes. In addition, the company plans to introduce short-time working arrangements for about 1,000 employees from March 2009. Moreover, management confirmed that around 500 temporary agency workers had been made redundant already in autumn 2008. The 190 core staff affected now will be covered by a social plan.
Eurofound (2009), Doka, Internal restructuring in Austria, factsheet number 68008, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/68008.