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.
According to local newspaper "Eleftheria", Supermarket Larisa, the largest supermarket chain operating in the region of Larisa went bankrupt on April 22, 2015 after 28 years of operation. According to the reasoning of the court's ruling, "the company began to face financial problems from 2011, which were gradually rising and in the autumn of 2013 came to a general and permanent inability to meet its' overdue liabilities. Since then, it has ceased to pay employees' wages, tax liabilities, service debts to suppliers, and has not paid VAT taxes received from its customers. Additionally, from September 2013 onwards the company owes earned incomes to the employees as they were not paid in a timely fashion and were also obliged to take part of their salary in kind. In mid-June 2014 all 42 supermarkets were shut down. After the bankruptcy of the cooperative, 422 workers and 135 workers & co-owners lost their jobs.
The closure of Supermarket Larisa has subsequently been the subject of a European Globalisation Fund application in 2015.
Eurofound (2015), Supermarket Larisa, Bankruptcy in Greece, factsheet number 93204, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/93204.