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 the fall-out of the bursting of the Irish property bubble, Anglo Irish Bank has announced approximately 430 redundancies. It is reported that troubled bank will seek up to 230 job losses immediately and a similar number over the next two years. The chief executive of the bank has said that it will "undergo radical change in the coming months.... Our mandate, as a nationalised bank, is to keep the public interest to the fore and the restructuring of New Anglo Bank will reflect this objective,".
The bank has said that its preference is for voluntary redundancies. The first phase of redundancies will address 'surplus capacity'. The second phase will follow the submission of a restructuring plan which must be sent to the European Commission under the terms of the bank's recapitalisation.
The redundancies did not come as a surprise, having been widely mooted, given that lending from the bank is almost non-existent. Anglo has been termed a 'zombie bank', whose priority is to stem serious losses from property loans, which have required a €4 billion bailout from the Government to replenish its capital reserves. It is expected to seek additional State capital, due to the scale of its losses from 'bad' property loans.
Staff in Ireland are being offered four weeks' pay for every year of service up to 52 weeks, in addition to the statutory entitlement (two weeks pay for every year of service).
Eurofound (2009), Anglo Irish Bank, Internal restructuring in Ireland, factsheet number 69804, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/69804.