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.
Bankitalia, the Central Bank of Italy, has announced its intention to reduce its headcount by 360 employees out of a total number of 7,000 workers. The job cuts will be implemented over the next three years.
The decision was announced by the management to trade unions as part of a restructuring plan. Bankitalia implemented a number of cost cutting measures over the last years, among others the closure of about 30 out of 97 branches in 2007 (see BankitaliaIT-2007).
The current plan enviages the closure of about 20 branches mainly distributed in Lombardy, Sicily, Tuscany, Lazio and Campania, and including also Novara, Treviso, Reggio Emilia, La Spezia in Northern Italy and Taranto and Cosenza in the South.
Bankitalia did not disclose the timeline for the closure but specified that the affected branches will close once their workforce will shrink below 7 units and, in any case, by the end of 2018. The management is committed to discussing with unions alternative measures including relocation.
Unions complained that their proposed alternatives to the closure of the branches were not taken into consideration by the management and announced their intention to launch industrial actions to oppose the job cuts.
Eurofound (2015), Bankitalia, Internal restructuring in Italy, factsheet number 78686, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/78686.