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.
Swedish facility service company ISS is to cut all 143 workers currently employed to clean the commuter trains in the Stockholm region. ISS recently lost the procurement of this service to MTR. The 143 employees currently cleaning the trains have been given notice of their employment being terminated.
Spontaneous unofficial strikes have occurred following the notice, and local union officials have expressed concern regarding the proposed redundancies. Union representatives have demanded that all employees currently cleaning trains for ISS should keep their jobs and benefits and automatically be re-employed by the new contractor MTR. The ISS representatives have expressed that the responsibility for the future of the workers lies upon the new contractor (MTR) and on the purchaser of the cleaning service (Stockholm Public Transport).
On 23 December 2015 local union representative requested central employer-employee negotiations, thus the execution of the redundancies has been paused, awaiting the result of these negotiations. Negotiations will start during January 2016.
Eurofound (2015), ISS Facility Service AB, Closure in Sweden, factsheet number 86076, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/86076.