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.
IBM Spain is planning to dismiss 137 employees (10% of its entire workforce in Spain). At this time, the company has not revealed the departments which will be affected, nor the geographic distribution. In addition, the company aims to decrease the wages of remaining staff by 12%. The company attributes the measures to economic, productive and technical reasons, taking advantage of the more flexible regulations in relation to restructuring in Spain introduced in 2012. However, trade unions argue that the reason for the reduction is to prevent the application of an earlier Labour Court decision obliging the company to restore unpaid pension entitlements. The consultation period for the redundancies started on 22 September 2015 and an agreement is expected to be reached before the end of October.
Eurofound (2015), IBM Spain, Internal restructuring in Spain, factsheet number 84953, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/84953.