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.
The multinational Worldwide Transcon, specialised in the provision of call-centre services, has announced that it will implement an employment adjustment plan that will affect 315 workers. The measure will be implemented because the company has lost its previous contract with the Spanish bank Banco Santander, that has decided to contract those services to the companies Konecta, Unisono and Sitel. Workers affected by the measure are those employed in the offices located in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid). The measure should start to be negotiated with the trade unions by 9 May. The trade union CGT has criticised that the sectoral collective agreement recently negotiated between the employer associations and the trade unions UGT and CCOO did not include the right to subrogation aiming to guarantee that the workers of the company services will remain in their jobs if the contracted company change, as initially demanded. This measure would have prevented those dismissals.
Eurofound (2017), Transcom Worldwide Spain, Internal restructuring in Spain, factsheet number 90824, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/90824.