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.
Metalli Preziosi, a company which operates in the metal sector, is to close, with the consequent loss of 120 jobs. In July 2009, the company's owner announced the procedure of bankruptcy for both the Metalli Preziosi and the Lares, a company with the same ownership and that employs 132 workers. After a period of unsuccessful negotiations between the companies' owner, the trade unions and local authorities in order to find adequate solutions to avoid the closure, on 14 September five workers have organised a sit-in on the roof of the Metalli Preziosi plant. The workers are worried about their future: at the end of the 'extra-ordinary' Wage Guarantee Fund scheme (that will last until the 2010) they'll definitively loss their jobs if any entrepreneurs won't decide to buy the two companies. In the next days, there will be further meetings, which will involve also the Minister of Economic Development in order to find measures both to avoid the closure of Lares and Metalli Preziosi and to reduce the negative social effects for workers. In the last months, in different areas of Italy, there were other cases of 'unusual' protest actions developed by workers in order to preserve their jobs.
Eurofound (2009), Metalli Preziosi, Bankruptcy in Italy, factsheet number 69532, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/69532.