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 private Courier Company Unipost is going to close: as a result, it has announced that it will implement an employment adjustment that will affect its entire workforce (2,200 workers). The company has been under insolvency procedure since July. The company explains that the measure is due to its difficult economic situation. The independent administrator managing the company for the duration of the insolvency procedure has announced that the goal is to sell the company to another private company within the sector or to an investment fund. Thus, an important share of the workers could keep their job if acquired by another company.
Update 25/10/2017:The law firm which is acting as independent administrator under the insolvency procedure has announced that it will implement a first employment adjustment affecting 560 workers. The negotiations between the independent administrator, the company owners and the trade unions have already started. The trade union CCOO has informed that the intention of the independent administrator is to apply the employment adjustment affecting 560 workers in December 2017. The remaining 1730 workers will be dismissed in different stages until May 2018. CCOO has also announced that it will demand that the company director pays the debt to staff (€ 6 million in total) out of his personal assets.
Eurofound (2017), Unipost, Closure in Spain, factsheet number 92284, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/92284.