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.
Hellenic Shipyards at Skaramangas are for sale and 1200 to 1400 workers are about to loose their jobs.
ThyssenKrupp is putting the Skaramangas Shipyards up for sale on April 1, after its decision in Essen, Germany, to make cutbacks of half a billion euros per year due to the global economic crisis. The news has not taken the Greek government by surprise, according to sources, as for about a year now there have been serious problems with the shipyards that have pointed to the need for a rescue plan, not just for Skaramangas but for the entire industry in Greece. ThyssenKrupp reportedly informed the competent ministers last year about its intention to depart if certain issues it deems crucial are not solved. Now developments are forcing the government to immediately take the initiative, as the German firm has set the end of September as a deadline for the shipyard's sale, otherwise it will close down Skaramangas. The scenario that the government is considering provides for the creation of a single shipbuilding and repair body that would include the state, the Neorion group and to some extent also ThyssenKrupp, at least for the period that the German firm has outstanding contractual or other obligations toward the Greek state. According to the head of Neorion any plan will have to proceed under the supervision of the European Commission, along the lines of the Olympic Airlines privatization procedure. At the same time, the German shareholders are threatening to close down the autonomous unit producing rolling stock if by end-April they do not secure funding for the manufacture of cargo wagons and thus fulfil contractual commitments undertaken with a foreign company. To this end the German firm is exerting pressure on the Greek government to ensure Greek banks offer some funding. ThyssenKrupp is one of the world's biggest technology groups. More than 199,000 employees worldwide work in the Group's main areas of steel, capital goods and services, realizing sales of more than €53 billion in fiscal 2007/2008. Alongside product manufacturing, the Group is increasingly concentrating on system solutions and innovative services in their five segments Steel, Stainless, Technologies, Elevator and Services.
Eurofound (2009), Hellenic Shipyards, Closure in Greece, factsheet number 68659, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/68659.