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.
Compagnia Aerea Italiana (CAI), the Italian airline operating under the trademarks Alitalia and AirOne, announced its intention to enact a dismissal procedure for 2,251 employees. Redundancies will affect 787 workers who are currently under a wage guarantee fund scheme (CIG zero hours), as well as additional staff: 1,084 members of the ground crew, 258 flight attendants and 122 pilots.
As reported, the layoffs are part of a broader restructuring plan in view of the entrance of Etihad in the company’s share capital.
The dismissal procedure has not started yet but talks are in progress. Trade unions refuse to bargain about redundancies until the business plan will be disclosed. CAI seems determined not to reduce the number of the planned redundancies but may offer to redundant pilots to move, on a voluntary basis, to Etihad’s headquarters in Abu Dhabi.
The company seeks to reach an agreement by the end of July.
For previous restructuring events concerning Compagnia Aerea Italiana and the previously state-owned Alitalia, see AlitaliaIT-2012, AlitaliaIT-2010, AlitaliaIT-2009, AlitaliaIT-2007, AlitaliaIT-2004.
Updated, 02/07/2014: Sources report ongoing negotiations in order to minimise the number of job cuts to 1,500. As announced, labour unions Anpac, Avia and Anpav, representing pilots and crew, called for a 24-hour strike.
Updated, 17/07/2014: Direct dismissals have been reduced to 954 thanks to a planned job reallocation of 616 employees within the company and the outsourcing of 681 workers by the end of the year. Dismissed workers will not benefit from the wages guarantee fund but from outplacement services financed by the State. The agreement was signed by CISL, UIL, UGL and the associations representing pilots (ANPAC) and flight attendants (ANPAV and AVIA) but not from CGIL.
Parallel negotiations led to the renewal of the sectoral collective agreement and to the approval of a plan aimed at saving about €31 million on labour costs in the next 5 months. Both the agreements were signed by FILT and FIT, the unions related to the transport sector respectively affiliated to CGIL and CISL, but not from Uiltrasporti and UGL.
Italian authorities applied for European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) aid on 24/03/2015.
Eurofound (2014), Alitalia, Internal restructuring in Italy, factsheet number 77213, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/77213.